


Coming Home

by NoirSongbird



Series: Our Kingdom Awaits [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (of a sort), Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Major Character Injury, Noodle Dragons, On Hiatus, Post-Recall, Reaper Redemption, Widowmaker Redemption, again of a sort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7937209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Recall initiated, Overwatch agents old and new drift back into the fold; some seeking heroism, others seeking redemption, and others still returning to the only home they have ever known. However, with the return of Overwatch, there is also a return of those who wanted it shut down - which will give the agents the chance to finally discover who it was that tore them apart.</p><p>[HIATUS]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so, welcome to my big multichapter Overwatch adventure! The three ships tagged are going to be what I would call the ships that drive the plot, but there will be a ton of background ships; I didn't want to tag those since they won't receive as much focus? So here they are just in case one of them is somebody's notp:  
> Genji/Symmetra  
> Junkrat/Lucio  
> Pharah/Mercy  
> Ana/Reinhardt  
> Mei/Zarya
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy!

Overwatch, Hanzo was realizing, was not much of anything like he had imagined it would be.

He had waited a few days after his confrontation with his brother (his brother, alive, changed, but  _ alive _ , and Hanzo had never been so grateful for anything in his entire life) before making any effort towards tracking Genji down, because he had been attempting to puzzle through his brother’s words about  _ taking a side,  _ and finally he had thrown up his hands and decided he would only get an answer by asking Genji himself.

When he did finally find his brother, the enthusiastic leaping hug he received reminded him much more of the young sparrow he had known than the deliberately mysterious assassin had. 

Genji had explained, with obvious excitement, that when he had first approached Hanzo it had mostly been based on hope and convenience, because it was the one day of the year where he actually had a chance of knowing where Hanzo was, but in the days since - while Hanzo considered his offer, considered this second chance being delivered on a silver platter - he had received a message.

A recall.

From  _ Overwatch. _

Overwatch was a force made up of legends - of heroes,  _ true  _ heroes, and Hanzo had balked, at first, because -- because he did not belong among them, the heir to a criminal empire who had fled and become an assassin for hire, but Genji had insisted, had all but pleaded, and Hanzo owed him this.

Hanzo owed him so much more than following him to Gibraltar, but following him to Gibraltar was a start.

The initial pool of agents was small - those who had held onto old Overwatch communication devices out of sentiment, or perhaps out of desperation. He wasn’t sure which it was for Genji; perhaps he did not have to hold onto it so much as it was a part of him. Hanzo did not quite have the stomach to ask his brother for the technical specifications of his modifications.

His certainty that he did not belong only grew the longer he stayed; these agents, the few who had answered the first call, were all true and brave heroes, and people who obviously cared about his brother. People who had seen Genji through the worst time in his life, a rock bottom that Hanzo had beaten him down to. Doctor Angela Ziegler, call sign “Mercy”; the one who had put his brother back together. Lena Oxton, call sign “Tracer”; obviously a dear friend of Genji’s, matching his energy in a way that left Hanzo exhausted just watching them. Winston, a brilliant scientist who happened to be a sapient gorilla, the one who had initiated the Recall and thereby the de facto leader of new Overwatch, who had greeted Genji with the fondness of old friends.

Worst, perhaps, was Jesse McCree.

It was unfair, Hanzo thought vaguely, or perhaps it was entirely fair given everything Hanzo had done, that McCree had been Genji’s partner in old Overwatch. That they were as close as brothers, that Genji had greeted McCree with a hug as enthusiastic as the one he had greeted Hanzo with.

McCree, Hanzo could tell, regarded him with suspicion. McCree wanted everyone to think he was a fool, but Hanzo had spent -- perhaps too much time observing him, noting the way he moved, the way he, too, observed people, the way he scanned a room, and how he seemed to be constantly assessing for threats. The man was much cleverer than he let on, and for that reason as much as any other Hanzo was inclined to casually respect him. 

It was...unfortunate, then, that it was fairly clear McCree deeply disliked him. Fair, perhaps -- he could not fathom forgiving  _ himself _ for what he had done to his brother, never mind that Genji had forgiven him, he certainly was not going to begrudge the people who had watched his brother suffer through the results of Hanzo’s foolish continued devotion to the clan their refusal to forgive -- but unfortunate, because there was just enough under the blustering surface of Jesse McCree for Hanzo to be deeply intrigued. 

Still, at least McCree was forward about some things. His distaste was not subtle, and for Hanzo that was something of a relief, when many of the others (Doctor Ziegler, particularly) seemed to be making every effort to cover their contempt, and that was...jarring. Wrong.

He did not belong here, in this gathering of heroes. No matter how much he might wish to, no matter how much he might hope for a path to proper redemption, he did not belong.

Rather than force these people to interact with him, Hanzo made himself as solitary as possible. He took his meals at odd hours, used the training rooms only when he was certain no one else would, spent much of his time high on the roofs of Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

It was easier that way, for everyone. Besides, it meant he knew all the high places on the base - all the places that would be ideal spots for him to place himself in case of an attack. Surely that made all the solitude worthwhile.

Genji came to find him sometimes, and they sat in silence or exchanged idle conversation, and Hanzo would admit that either way, he was oddly comfortable. Adjusting to his brother’s returned presence in his life was...strange, but he was, ultimately, glad for it. He reminded himself, over and over, that it was not his place to decide if he should accept Genji’s forgiveness. That it would be unfair of him to let his certainty that he was not worth forgiving cause him to push Genji away. So he welcomed his brother’s presence, and he even let it comfort him - even if the rest of them hated him, Genji at least wanted him here. 

 

* * *

 

Being called into a strategy meeting was something of an odd feeling for Hanzo. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised to be included - there were not nearly enough agents for Winton to be picky, and yet he had almost expected to be casually excluded, given the clear lack of trust other agents had for him.

He didn’t bother to sit, taking a spot towards the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. When Genji came in, chatting cheerily with Tracer, he cast a glance over at the spot Hanzo had claimed, and Hanzo did not need to see his face to picture the frown on it. Genji was not pleased with his choice to seclude himself, which was...unfortunate, but, well, it was  _ Hanzo’s choice. _

There was another pair of eyes on him, and when he glanced over, eyebrow raised, the cowboy quickly broke eye contact and moved to pay attention to Winston. 

Hanzo wondered if McCree considered him a threat. He had seen the man’s combat simulations - while he did not train with others, he did sometime find a hidden place on the large range to observe - and he hoped, fervently, that McCree did not, because he had a good idea of what the cowboy did to threats.

Hanzo was good, but he was not arrogant or stupid. He knew he could very well meet his match.

“Ahem,” Winston said, to start the briefing, and Hanzo turned his full attention the scientist’s way. “Since I sent out the initial recall a few weeks ago, I have been working on a way to accomplish a wider one - to reach out to more of our agents, wherever they might be, and invite them back.” He paused, briefly, waving a hand in front of him, and above the table came up a holographic display of what appeared to be a drone of some kind, slowly rotating. “I have put together a communications drone that, when released in low Earth orbit, will allow me to send out a second Recall signal to agents who may have lost, destroyed, or discarded their old Overwatch communications devices. Clearly, not many of us hung into them,” he laughed, a bit forced, and then sighed, “but we cannot operate as a six-man force forever.”

“So when’re you launching it?” Tracer asked, leaning forward excitedly. 

“Ideally, within the next week - but launching it will require moving it from one end of the base to the other,” and Winston was obviously frowning, “which is a potentially dangerous proposition. I’ve also been working on a rocket to act as a delivery system, and frankly, that’s quite a lot of activity at a base that is supposed to be abandoned. Talon has already broken in here once, and although Athena and I have beefed up security since, I wouldn’t put it past them to try it again.”

Hanzo frowned, himself. He had a few run-ins with Talon while he was operating as a mercenary - they were brutal, vicious, murderous, with no care for collateral damage or anything but whatever their end goal might be.

Hanzo had idly tracked some of their attributed actions, and he still was not sure what they might be after, because none of it was quite coming into a proper pattern. 

“So we’re gonna need t’guard this drone while it makes its merry way ‘cross the base, then,” McCree said, cutting to the heart of the matter as seemed to be his general wont.

“Exactly,” Winston said. “Consider it a trial run - we can see how everyone works together, before we leave here for something bigger.” He nodded his head, firmly. “I think it’ll be important, also, that we start having group training exercises, since if we do get into a fight it will be important that we all remember how we fight together. So! We can start that tomorrow.” He clapped, and the hologram of the drone vanished, and he looked around, grinning. “1900 tomorrow, after dinner? Everyone should be there.”

Hanzo sighed.

It seemed he would not be able to continue to be solitary forever. Unfortunate. 

But perhaps there was an upside to all of this. It was moronic of him to imagine that Overwatch could be an effective fighting force if its members distrusted one another - perhap these exercise would help him show the people he intended to fight with that whatever his past, he could at least be counted on now to do his part competently. 

He was halfway out the door when a large, gloved hand contacted his bare shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin, looking to his side to see McCree, chewing on a cigar and grinning.

“So, these trainin’ exercises - you’re plannin’ t’be there, yeah, Shimada-san?” He asked. Hanzo felt something wary and tense crawl up his spine - this felt like something almost companionable, but...could he trust that this was genuinely meant?

It did not matter.

“Of course,” he said. “Winston did say  _ everyone,  _ and I would be an idiot to not attend. Being cognizant of others’ fighting styles will be absolutely critical if we do ever end up in combat.” He said, as if it was entirely obvious. “I intend to be a part of Overwatch, McCree-san, and that means doing my portion of the work.”

“Well, good!” McCree’s sudden cheer seemed entirely genuine, and wasn’t that odd. “Been lookin’ forward t’seein’ what you can do, Genji’s been talkin’ ya up like crazy.” The cowboy winked. “Maybe we’ll find we work real well together, hmm?”

He gave Hanzo another clap on the shoulder, and then he strode away, and Hanzo was left trying to force down the furious blush that wanted to rise on his cheeks and doing mental acrobatics to convince himself that seeing McCree smile and  _ wink at him _ hadn’t made his stomach do flips.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. And also  _ sad.  _ Surely he was not so starved for acknowledgement that a brief moment of teasing from someone who clearly did not mean it affected him so; and yet there he was, hand over his face, staring at the ground.

Suddenly, there was Genji, a cybernetic elbow gently digging into Hanzo’s side.

“McCree-san is quite charming, is he not?” Genji asked, in an almost angelic tone of voice - the tone of voice he only used when he was about to unleash ruthless teasing. Hanzo coughed.

“I suppose,”  he said, and then he turned and walked away, to the sound of Genji’s affectionate laughter.

(He could not say how much he had missed that sound, really. It made him almost giddy to hear it again, yet another little reminder that  _ Genji was alive,  _ that maybe there was hope for Hanzo after all.)


	2. Chapter 2

Hanzo was aware that Overwatch’s practice facilities were excellent - top of the line, six years ago, he was sure, since Gibraltar had been a major Watchpoint - but he had never really seen them put to their full use for a proper team training simulation before. 

“Much of the tech was donated,” Winston said, when he noticed Hanzo staring, wide eyed, at the interior of the room, altered to resemble the Gibraltar base, “by the Vishkar Corporation. Lots of companies did things like that, back then, wanting to get on Overwatch’s good side.” He adjusted his glasses, looking somewhat bashful. “Athena and I had to do a lot of work, to get it back in working order, once we sent out the Recall, but...I think it was worth it.”

“I agree.” Hanzo said, simply. In here, they would be able to have simulated enemies, and also draw less attention than if, for instance, he was climbing around the towers outside for several days of practice. 

The team was gathering in a simulated version of Winston’s research area (Hanzo glanced up and could even see that Athena had included the detail of the window that Winston had shattered, throwing a Talon agent through it), which would be their staging area on the day of the actual escort.

Hanzo found himself twirling an arrow between his fingers, idly, watching Genji roll back and forth on the balls of his feet, keyed up even for simulated combat. Lena was chatting animatedly at him, and Dr. Zeigler was watching them both with a certain level of sisterly fondness. 

He glanced around for McCree, and was faintly surprised when the cowboy was suddenly next to him - apparently capable of moving quietly when he wanted to - flashing him what was probably intended to be a reassuring grin.

(It worked.)

“Feelin’ antsy?” He asked. Hanzo shook his head.

“Eager, if anything,” he confessed. “It has...been a very long time since I operated with a team.” He wasn’t sure that he could say he ever had, not the way he would be today. ( _ From now on, _ he realized, and it wa a very pleasant realization.)

“It’s nice,” McCree said, “havin’ people at your back you can trust.” The cowboy nodded to him and moved to the door, and Hanzo nodded back. He glanced up - there were stairs that would take him outside at a higher vantage point, which seemed preferable, so he moved to the higher level door as he waited for Athena to begin the countdown to send them out.

The simulation was obviously accounting for a worst-case type scenario - because there were Talon agents right out the door, and Hanzo was glad he already had an arrow out and nocked. He began firing, moving along the ledge as he did until he could get from it to the bridge leading to the comm tower. From there, he had an excellent vantage point - to watch Lena and his brother darting around, taking out Talon agent with ease, and McCree’s almost casual point and shoot. Winston took out two rapidly with his Tesla cannon, and that was it - of the first wave. Dr. Ziegler floated up next to him, landing delicately on the bridge.

“Doing alright, Hanzo?” She asked. He nodded shortly, and she nodded back, flying off to check on Lena while Winston got the drone moving. Hanzo darted for the comm tower, knowing that through there was another catwalk - he had wandered this section of the base quite a lot, and he was glad for it because he knew the high places he could use to snipe from. He found himself hoping that the simulation had not given Talon their own sniper - he was confident in his abilities, but not entirely in his ability to take out the legendary Widowmaker before she took out a member of his team. 

On the training ground, that would just mean an unpleasant shock. In a real fight…

Well.

He darted along the path, more agents appearing as they moved - for the most part he was just providing cover, sniping the occasional Talon  agent who got a little too close to one of his teammates. The catwalks all around the base made for perfect perches, and he stuck close to doors so he could slip into cover if his position become compromised. There was little chatter over the smaller earpiece communicators Winston had fitted them all with - a sign, Hanzo supposed, of the professionalism of the people he was working with.

He realized, once, with a moment of pure alarm, that he had lost track of McCree - only to find him again at the center of four Talon agents, looking rather perturbed.

“Kuso,” he cursed under his breath, pulling out an arrow and flicking on the  _ scatter  _ setting. A careful calculation of angles and...he fired, and as he’d expected, the shrapnel pieces neatly took out the Talon agents and left McCree unharmed. The cowboy was still for a long moment, and then he turned, caught sight of Hanzo, and grinned, touching two fingers to his hat in a quick salute. Hanzo flashed a quick almost-smile back, and then he returned to doing his job. This felt good, to be back in combat, and better to not be alone, even if it was just practice. 

They were successful, on that practice run, and when Hanzo lapt from his last perch to rejoin the team, he found himself swept into a very enthusiastic hug by McCree.

“Shit, Shimada-san,” he said, when he let go, “that trick y’did, with the - “ he waved a hand, and Hanzo could guess what he meant.

“They are called scatter arrows,” Hanzo informed him.

“Scatter arrow, yeah, that was - you woulda really saved my bacon if this had been a real fight, and - damn, thanks,” he said, and he clapped Hanzo on the shoulder again before wandering over to get checked by Dr. Ziegler.

Hanzo gently pressed a hand to the place on his shoulder McCree had touched, and then he realized he could feel eyes on him and he looked up and around.

Somehow, even without a visible face, he could tell Genji was giving him a knowing look. Hanzo shot him a glare, and Genji somehow managed to affect a suggestive eyebrow raise without  _ having visible eyebrows,  _ with a shoulder movement and a shift in posture.

Hanzo had not expected to miss brotherly teasing - and he had not even realized how much he missed it until it was right there in front of him, nearly knocking him off his feet. He didn’t even so much mind the  _ teasing  _ part - yes, yes, he was beginning to develop what might have been an absolutely disastrous crush on McCree. It wasn’t going to go anywhere - he wouldn’t let it, because McCree was just beginning to see Hanzo as a  _ comrade  _ rather than an outsider, and surely there were much better options for a handsome, gregarious cowboy than an assassin with his brother’s blood on his hands. (Because no matter that Genji was still alive, right there in front of him, laughing at something Lena said and waving Dr. Ziegler off when she asked if he needed any medical attention, Hanzo had still tried to kill him.)

All of this was so much more than he could ever possibly deserve.

 

* * *

 

They ran several more training simulations together, at varying levels of “bad scenario” - sometime there were more Talon agents, sometimes less, but the team continued to perform admirably, and the more time Hanzo spent with them on the practice range the more he found himself being drawn into other team activities. It seemed simply sensible to let them draw him into a communal meal, rather than slinking off to his room, and after that perfectly reasonable to take only a brief trip back to get the book he was working on before settling into the rec room with the others. 

He still feared their judgement, but he was beginning to realize that it was possible the only one doing any judging was himself. (Further proof that these were better people than he deserved to be around, that they seemed to have so readily taken Genji’s word that he was more than the worst decision of his life.)

He was not particularly talkative, but no one seemed to  _ mind,  _ with Genji and Lena and McCree doing plenty of talking to cover for not just Hanzo but probably a whole building’s worth of people.

It felt strange, to let himself be accepted, when he had been so certain he could never be. Then again, this was not the first time Hanzo had been horribly wrong about something; it was merely a more pleasant sort of incorrect than most. 

 

* * *

 

The planned day to actually launch the drone dawned warm and bright, too cheery for a day on which Hanzo was well prepared for there to be danger.

He checked his stock of arrows, ensuring they were properly prepared, and that Storm Bow was in perfect working order, and only when he was certain he was prepared for potential battle did he step out of his quarters and into the communal dining hall to get breakfast. Everyone seemed more serious today than before - possibly because they, like him, were just waiting for Athena’s proximity alarms to go off and inform them Talon was present and heading for the drone. Hanzo felt keyed up, anxious almost - the team had worked together well in fairly realistic simulations, but an actual fight was something very different.

Then again, he was likely being unfair to them, imagining they could not hold it together. These were members of  _ Overwatch,  _ they had been in battle before. In battle against Talon, even. They knew their enemy better than he did; it was arrogant of him to assume they would be anything but professional.

There was no tripping of sensors at first, no alarms, nothing. The movement of drone to launch pad was quiet, almost…

“Too quiet,” McCree had muttered into the communicator, and Hanzo agreed, for all that he was reasonably certain it was a cliche. It was much too quiet - no caws of seagulls, and no visible Talon agents.

Until they reached the launchpad, and suddenly Athena was yelling warnings and there were agents in black pouring out from behind trailers and climbing over the edge of the cliffs.

It was a clever tactic, Hanzo mused. Wait for them to think they were almost successful, and then ambush them - ideally when they had let their guard down and were relaxing. 

It was unfortunate, then, that it hadn’t worked.

Hanzo started firing automatically, as the sounds of his team’s weapons filled the air - the  _ hiss  _ and  _ tink  _ of Genji’s shuriken, the rapid fire of Lena’s pistols, the more measured blasts of McCree’s revolver, the crackle of Winston’s Tesla cannon, even the medium-tempo firing of Dr. Zeigler’s Caudecus Pistol. 

Hanzo felt the clarity that only battle could bring, watching as Talon agent after Talon agent fell under the relentless onslaught of only six agents of Overwatch.

The problem was, there were simply too many of them. No matter how quickly Lena darted, no matter how precise McCree’s shots, no matter how angry Winston got, there were  _ too many. _

They needed something that would cut wide swaths through Talon.

They needed the dragons.

“Genji!” Hanzo barked into the comm. Apparently, he did not need to explain.

“I am with you, brother,” Genji said, and Hanzo let out a breath.

Good.

He nocked an arrow, drew back, focused, and reached, feeling the dragons stir within him. They felt stronger, now, than they had even on that night in Hanamura, when he had sworn they were back at full strength after all but abandoning him for the decade after Genji’s murder. 

“ _ Ryuū ga waga teki wo kurau! _ ” He shouted, at the same time Genji declared “ _ ryūjin no ken o kure!” _

His arrow streaked true, flying across the field, and the dragons followed, as Genji’s dragon followed his sword.

It was not, one might say, a good day to be a Talon agent. The three dragons ripped ravenously through their ranks, and as the majestic creatures twisted through the air and faded, the entire battle came to a brief halt.

(Hanzo swore he heard McCree mutter some sort of prayer, just barely loud enough for the comm to pick up, but it was in Spanish, so he couldn’t be entirely sure.)

There was not much left of Talon’s forces, after that - merely cleanup, and then Winston launched the satellite into the air, and initiated a formal Recall.

Overwatch, it seemed, had truly returned.

 

* * *

Hanzo was not used to being the center of attention, had not been used to it for nearly a decade - and yet here he was, the focus of excited interest from his team. Him and Genji both, though his brother seemed to be enjoying the whole thing far more than he had any right to.

“That was  _ amazing!”  _ Lena chirped, eyes wide, bouncing back and forth between the Shimada brothers. The group, short Winston, had retired to the rec room once cleanup was finished outside, and much was being made of the appearance of the dragons. “I mean, I’d seen Genji do it once or twice, back in the old days, but  _ wow,  _ seeing you both at once, that was - that was something  _ spectacular,  _ Talon never knew what hit ‘em!”

“Yes, I imagine being devoured by a spirit dragon does come as something of a surprise,” Hanzo muttered, which sent Lena into peals of laughter. She smacked his chest, grinning. 

“You’re alright, Shimada-san. You really are.” She said.

“I  _ told  _ you,” Genji said airily. “My brother is an incredibly competent fighter, an asset to Overwatch. I was certain he would be.” He turned to Hanzo, and somehow - probably the rest of his body language - Hanzo was certain he was grinning, under that faceplate. Hanzo felt himself flush, a little, at the praise, and also because McCree wasn’t talking - a surprise, for the gregarious cowboy - he was just... _ watching. _

Watching  _ Hanzo,  _ and obviously evaluating.

“You're a good guy, Hanzo,” he said, finally, “an’ I’m mighty glad you’re here, or that fight mighta gone real different.”

Hanzo flushed darker and looked away, not sure what to do with that sort of praise. Fortunately, he was saved from responding by Winston’s return.

“I hate to break up the party,” the ape said, “but it looks like we won’t have much time to celebrate anyway. We’ve had a few calls back - and one of them is from an agent in Ilios, Greece. He’s requested our help. Reinhardt and Torbjörn will be meeting us once we arrive, and I’ll give you a full briefing, but it isn’t looking good.”

“Now slow down just a bit, Winston,” McCree said. “What’s got us rushin’ off?”

“This agent believes he is being stalked by a mercenary who is targeting Overwatch agents.” Winston said, adjusting his glasses. “A man who calls himself Reaper.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hanzo was glad he had little to pack, a result of being used to moving quickly from place to place, because Winston was absolutely insistent that they pack up as quickly as possible and get moving. He took the threat from this “Reaper” seriously - and, frankly, so did Hanzo. While he was working as an assassin, he had heard whispers - of a man with abilities that seemed almost supernatural, cloaked in black, masked, and carrying two enormous shotguns, willing to do most anything as long as the price was right. Ruthlessly, terrifyingly efficient, with a reputation for always getting the job done.

Worse, as Winston informed them in the flurry to pack and head out to Ilios, was that he was targeting former Overwatch agents. It sent something cold crawling up Hanzo’s spine to imagine some mercenary with a vendetta coming for Genji - or for any of the agents he was coming to know. 

Hanzo took a long moment watching Athena’s footage of Reaper’s supposed destruction - of what should have been the end of the monster, except clearly it wasn’t, unless it was some sort of Dread Pirate Roberts situation and someone else had taken up the vengeance mantle in the wake of the original’s death.

If Reaper  _ had  _ somehow survived being absolutely atomized, that meant he would be very difficult to kill.

There was a small  _ chirp  _ on his shoulder, as he carefully packed away Storm Bow and ran over potential strategies in his head, and Hanzo turned his head - and could not stop the smile that broke onto his face.

“Udon,” he said, and it wa with a nearly breathless sigh. The small blue dragon coiled around his shoulders, about the size of an adult corn snake, made a bright happy chirp, and pressed her face against Hanzo’s cheek. 

When he was a child, his dragons had manifested in physical form regularly, eager to climb around the estate and to provide him with a welcome distraction. They, and Genji’s dragon, had been a source of joy and excitement - but the older Hanzo got and the more he withdrew, the less he saw them.

They had not appeared in physical form for ten years, not since the day he struck down his brother.

And yet here was one of them, wrapped around his bare arm and nuzzling against his face. A second weight on his other arm signalled the arrival of the other dragon, and he sighed an affectionate “Soba,” as she wound her way down to press her face into his palm. He ran a thumb over the dragon’s head, and she made a happy, affectionate chirp. 

“You...have returned to me?” He asked, voice soft. Both dragons chirped happily, an affirmation, and then Udon made a quiet concerned noise. Hanzo huffed softly. Apparently they had showed themselves again to lecture him mildly on the strategy he had been considering - because if the Reaper could survive Winston’s Tesla cannon, perhaps the angry, devouring maws of his dragons would do a better job permanently putting him down. Summoning them twice in a few short days would be exhausting - they were not meant to be used frequently - but he could weather it, if he had to, he was certain of that. “I promise to only summon you again if it is absolutely necessary.” Soba chirped reproachfully, her indication that she did not quite believe him. “I am not alone anymore,” Hanzo said, “I have people I can rely on - to keep me safe, if the worst does come to pass and I am forced to spend the energy. It will be fine.”

Udon made a faintly reproachful noise, but she pressed her face into his cheek one last time in an affectionate gesture, and then she and Soba were both gone.

Hanzo’s step was noticeably lighter, when he made his way to the transport, enough o that Genji noticed and slid over next to him.

“You seem unusually cheerful for where we’re going,” he said, idly, speaking Japanese - which Hanzo wa grateful for; it would keep the conversation private. “Imagining you might have a moment for a romantic walk on the beach with McCree?” A gentle elbow was applied to his side, and Hanzo huffed, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied, and then he was quiet for a moment. “...My dragons showed themselves, for the first time in quite some time.” Genji lit up - quite literally, the lights on his casing growing a few tics brighter. 

“That’ wonderful news!” He said, slinging an arm around Hanzo’s shoulders. “You see? Joining Overwatch  _ was  _ the right decision.” Hanzo hummed, nodding briefly, as Genji guided him to a seat and he settled in. McCree sat on his other side, tapping his foot slightly anxiously.

“Still nervous about flying?” Genji asked, dry, switching back to English. McCree huffed.

“More nervous ‘bout what we’re gonna end up fightin’,” he said. “You saw that video, Genji - tell me it didn’t look familiar.” Genji sighed, shoulders slumping a little.

“It did,” he acknowledged. “But - you know it is impossible, Jesse. And if it somehow were him…” Genji made a hand gesture, and Jesse shook his head.

“What?” Hanzo asked, certain that he was missing some piece of critical information. Genji and McCree exchanged a look around him, and McCree made a heavy huff.

“It’s those giant goddamn shotguns,” McCree said, “an’ -- the way he fought, how he used ‘em. Our old commander fought like that.”

“Jack Morrison?” Hanzo frowned. That did not quite align with depictions he’d seen of the man, but - Genji and McCree would know better, he supposed.

“No,” Genji replied. “Gabriel Reyes.” He exhaled, a sound rendered strange by the vocal modulation of his mask. “Jesse and I worked for a separate division of Overwatch - the covert operations division, Blackwatch. Commander Reyes was its head.”

“We did all th’shit Overwatch was too shiny t’be associated with,” McCree explained, and Hanzo nodded, understanding dawning. “Hell, some of us were the  _ people  _ Overwatch was too shiny t’be associated with. Reyes found me when I was seventeen, saved my ass from spendin’ the rest of my life in some Supermax facility in the ass end of nowhere. Couldn’ta gone into Overwatch with my criminal history, but Blackwatch? No problem, an’ I got to do somethin’ real with my life.” 

“And the ah, reconstructed cyborg prodigal son of a criminal empire is a difficult sell to the UN,” Genji said dryly. Hanzo frowned, pushing away the automatic surge of guilt he felt rising in his throat.

“And this Reyes?” He prompted.

“He was a good commander,” Genji said, “a good man. Blackwatch itself was...not what it was, in the years I was there - there were rumors, which were all but confirmed by what happened in Zurich,” and the whole world knew what happened in Zurich, even if they did not know the details, Hanzo supposed, because an Overwatch Watchpoint did not explode every day, “that Talon had infiltrated.” He shrank, a little. “Some people believe Commander Reyes set the bombs.”

“Ain’t no way,” Jesse said, fiercely, and Hanzo was surprised by how fiery and certain he sounded. “Ain’t no fuckin’ way it was Reyes. Shit was wrong, shit was bad - hell, it was so bad I  _ quit  _ \- but Reyes would goddamn never.”

“Even if he didn’t,” Genji said, “he  _ died  _ there. There’s no way…” He sighed. “Perhaps someone else, in Blackwatch, who wished to emulate Commander Reyes. The shotguns are...particular.”

“Whoever it is, it’s probably somebody we knew,” Jesse said, frowning. “I bet it’s Bogdanov, he was always a prick.” Genji laughed, almost in spite of himself.

“I hope you are wrong,” he said, “and it is merely someone with a grudge.”

Privately, Hanzo thought his brother was being far too optimistic.

 

* * *

 

When they touched down in Ilios and got to the safehouse, Hanzo was...not quite sure what to make of the two men waiting for them. One of them was huge, hulking, and grinning, greeting the old agents with a boom and a smile, introduced as Reinhardt Wilhelm, one of the longest-serving members of Overwatch. He fixed Hanzo with an interested but welcoming look.

“And who is this?” He asked, and Genji rested an arm on Hanzo’s shoulder, leaning over. 

“This,” Genji said, sounding proud, “is my brother Hanzo, who has agreed to join us - which is lucky for us, because he is one of the finest snipers I know.” 

There was no moment of strangeness, no hesitation - just a booming “ha HA” of greeting and then Hanzo found himself swept into a crushing hug.

“Welcome, welcome, Hanzo Shimada! If Genji says you are an asset, well! I trust his judgement. And it will be good to have a sniper at our backs again.”

Hanzo wanted to ask, but could not bring himself to.

The second man was much smaller, sitting on a stool and tinkering, and he gave a half-wave. That, Hanzo assumed, was Torbjörn, the famed Overwatch engineer.

“I won’t be going with ye,” Torbjörn informed them, straight to business, “I’ll be holding down the fort here, and I’m not much good in a run and gun fight anyway. Go get Metz, and bring him back here, and we will get out.” McCree frowned.

“Linas Metz?” He asked.

“Yes, that’s the one,” Torbjörn replied.

“Huh,” McCree said. “Winston said he was Overwatch - kinda assumed he was  _ Overwatch  _ Overwatch. Metz was one’a us Blackwatch boys.” 

“But he is still one of ours,” Reinhardt said, firmly, “and we will prevent this Reaper from getting his hands on him.”

 

* * *

 

The planned extraction went to shit almost as soon as it started, because there was Talon backup there. Or, Hanzo assumed it was backup - they were certainly between Overwatch and where Reaper and this Agent Metz were, but they seemed very surprised to find Overwatch and even less prepared for them. Still, it gave the strange wraith time to vanish into back alleys and out of the way of their planned trap. Hanzo swore, faintly, as he ran across the rooves of Ilios - fortunately flat, close together, and perfect for jumping between. McCree was below him, weaving through back alleys and swearing the whole way, alternating between English, Spanish, and a language Hanzo couldn’t place. They were separated from the team, which was stupid, but they were also the only two who had been able to break way - Reinhardt, Lena, and Genji were bogged down fighting, and Angela was needed more with them.

“Jesse,” Hanzo hissed into the comm, “do you know where we need to meet Metz?”

“‘S an old Blackwatch safehouse, yeah, I know where it is, we’re almost there,” McCree replied, and then he stopped in front of a door and swore, loudly. It was off its hinges. An ominous sign, in Hanzo’s opinion.

Hanzo leapt down from his rooftop, staring at the doorway with narrowed, mistrustful eyes.

“Is this it?” He asked.

“Yeah.” McCree replied, frowning darkly. “Looks like we ain’t the first ones here, though,” he said, and then he carefully raised Peacekeeper, moving in much more swiftly and silently than Hanzo would have given him credit for.

“We are at the safehouse,” Hanzo informed the rest of the team, voice low, “but the door was off the hinges and Metz is not in the front room. We will proceed further, but…”

It did not look good.

There were voices, from further into the house, and Hanzo grit his teeth, following McCree from the front room towards a kitchen area. 

“Posture all you want, Metz,” a low, rough, almost otherworldy growl - that had to be Reaper, “I know you, I know under it all you were always a fucking coward.”

He leaned around the door, and, yes - in the kitchen, with the table overturned between them, were Reaper and a man holding a semiautomatic pistol in shaking hands. The second man was their Agent Metz. 

“Definitely ex-Blackwatch,” McCree hissed, voice low. “The stance, the posture. Stuff Reyes taught us for interrogations.” Hanzo nodded, briefly, accepting the other agent’s assessment.

“Fuck you!” A second voice, slightly higher-pitched, but still masculine. “Where do you get off calling me a coward, running around in all black and that stupid mask? I think we know who’s really afraid, here!”

Hanzo had to resist the urge to press his face into his hands. That was almost disappointingly stupid.

Reaper threw back his head and laughed, a dark, creeping thing.

“Really, you son of a bitch? You think I’m the coward?” He asked, and then he raised one of those massive shotguns. 

“Hey!” McCree chose that moment to burst throguh the doorway, Peacekeeper raised. Hanzo slipped in behind him, hefting Storm Bow, arrow nocked and string drawn.

“McCree!” Mez gasped, relieved.

Reaper turned, slowly, and snarled. Hanzo tried not to shiver, seeing the bone-white owl mask the wraith wore.

“Back off, McCree.” Hanzo glanced over and saw Jesse’s eyes widen. “This is between me and this snivelling sack of shit.”

“It’s between all’a us, now,” McCree said, holding Peacekeeper steady. “You’re gonna back th’hell away or ‘tween me an’ Agent Hanzo here you’re gonna get filled with a lotta lead and a lotta arrows.”

“Oh, I’ll deal with you and  _ Agent Hanzo  _ later, McCree.” Reaper shook his head, turning back to Metz.

“You want to see who’s under the mask?” Reaper asked. Metz narrowed his eyes.

“I damned well do,” he said, and Hanzo noted the way his grip on his pistol shook. Pathetic, if you asked him, not that anyone was. 

“You asked,” Reaper said, and then he gripped the mask and lifted it off.

Jesse dropped Peacekeeper, and Metz made an absolutely horrified noise. Hanzo nearly lowered his bow, shocked by what he saw - a man’s face, certainly, with dark skin rendered sallow, scarred, eyes inhuman - black sclera with red irises - but still a recognizably human face. Wisps of black smoke poured off Reaper’s skin, and when he gave a heavy exhale, it came out of his mouth, too.

“Commander Reyes?” Jesse asked, sounding almost desperate. “Gabriel, is that --”

“Yeah,” Reaper -  _ Reyes?  _ \- said. “Now get out of my way, McCree. I’m doing a little belated housecleaning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> delicious emotional fallout next chapter i promise


	4. Chapter 4

Gabriel Reyes had, by all accounts, been having a very stressful few weeks. Ever since the damn mission at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, he had felt like he was chasing his own tail again, dodging Talon’s questions about why the mission had been unsuccessful, why Winston was still alive when Reaper had plenty of occasions to kill him and the record of murdering Overwatch agents to indicate that he had the will and desire to do so.

He couldn’t very well  _ tell them  _ it was because there was no way in Heaven or Earth that Winston was a Talon mole and those were the only people he was interested in killing, but he began to suspect they had figured it out anyway.

Still, they had apparently not bothered to remove his access codes to some of their databases, because when Agent Linas Metz made contact with Talon, Reyes was one of the first to know. He thought it was a blessing, because  _ that  _ was someone he had wanted to get his claws on for quite a long time. He had considered it a blessing, and begun making plans to get himself to Ilios, because he was going to pry every bit of information on Talon’s operations Metz had and then he was going to blow his face off.

He suspected this one would be  _ particularly  _ satisfying.

Except the minute he had landed in Ilios it had all gone rather pear-shaped, in the way only being shot in the chest right off his transport could achieve.

How Talon knew he was a traitor was beyond him - perhaps someone with half a brain in upper management had finally put together that every single Reaper-attributed kill was a former or current Talon operative, mole, plant, or affiliate, and combined that with the failure of his mission at Gibraltar to connect the dots like some kind of shitty kid’s game. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had to shadow step the hell out of an ambush, and his plan was blown to hell because he had not been accounting for fighting through Talon.

It was just his luck, he supposed, that Overwatch was here too and Talon had to turn and engage  _ them  _ \- he wondered, bitterly, if Metz had called them, had hoped to reinsert himself. It made him all the more determined to end him first.

He had found the old safehouse, had kicked the door off its hinges, had cornered his prey, and then  _ there was McCree,  _ like some obnoxious fucking flashback.

Jesse McCree, the kid he had taken in and mentored and turned from a delinquent into something resembling a real hero, standing there and pointing Peacekeeper at him and  _ threatening him.  _ He was backed up by an unfamiliar face with a sweeping dragon tattoo, pointing a fucking  _ bow and arrow  _ at  _ Reaper. _

Damn, it really did tell him how far he’d fallen.

Now here they were face to face, staring each other down, with Jesse’s gun lying on the floor and the cowboy staring at him with a mix of horror and something almost akin to  _ betrayal  _ on his face.

“ _ Housecleanin’?” _ McCree asked, sounding almost desperate, and Gabriel huffed.

“Talon isn’t here backing  _ me  _ up, McCree, they’re here backing  _ him  _ up.” He gestured, with his gun, at Metz, who sputtered angrily.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I would never --” He protested.

“ _ Shut the fuck up,”  _ Reyes growled, in his absolute best Commander of Blackwatch voice, and Metz shut right the fuck up. “You remember back when Talon was making threats against Gérard?” McCree nodded slowly. “I put a Blackwatch detail on them,  _ just in case,  _ abundance of caution, all that. Didn’t tell Gérard, didn’t tell Amélie, didn’t even tell  _ Jack  _ until I’d already done it _.  _ This piece of  _ garbage  _ was on that detail the night Amélie got kidnapped.” Interestingly, he watched understanding dawn on the face of McCree’s bow-wielding companion first, and slowly the bow moved from pointing at Reyes to pointing at Metz. “His partner took a bullet to the head, but poor precious Metzy? Pistolwhipped unconscious and left there. Then, not a week later, Metz is gone.” And there was McCree, catching on too, and he dove for Peacekeeper and whirled on Metz.

“ _ You helped ‘em take Amélie.” _ He growled, and Metz’s expression darkened.

“Gérard was a pain in everybody’s ass, he had to  _ go,”  _ Metz growled. “I’m sorry about what happened to Amélie, but I’m not sorry about putting you back in the grave you crawled out of, Reyes. You always were a shit boss.”

He unloaded his clip into Reyes’s chest, and Reyes just sighed. Between the Kevlar bodysuit and his regenerative capabilities, getting shot was mostly just  _ annoying.  _ Painful, sure, he  _ could  _ bleed and could even be forced to dissipate temporarily - but mostly? Annoying.

He raised one of his shotguns, but Handsome Half-Naked Archer was faster, and Metz went down with an arrow in the throat.

Not the method he had been going for, but Metz was dead and that was what was important. He strode up to the corpse and sucked out the life energy only he could see, sighing as he felt the increased...whatever it was kickstart the process of healing his chest. It also closed the minor wounds on his face that were leaking smoke, and generally left him more stabilized than he had been.

“Aw, what the  _ fuck,  _ Reyes,” Jesse said, staring at the body left drained and dessicated - like he had been dead for weeks, not minutes.

“One of the fun side-effects of whatever the hell Angela did to keep me alive.” He laughed, a little darkly. “I don’t think she knows what she did works.”

“We’re gonna tell ‘er,” Jesse said, firmly. “You’re comin’ back with us, an’ you’re explainin’ what the hell you’ve been doin’ and you’re  _ definitely  _ explainin’ what the hell you did at Gibraltar-” Reyes cut him off with a brief raised hand.

“Gibraltar was a Budapest job,” he said, and he knew that would be all the explanation McCree would need - in Budapest, they had both gone deep undercover with a gang and sabotaged its operations from the inside. “...Fuck, this whole  _ adventure  _ with Talon has been a Budapest job.” McCree huffed.

“Five-year Budapest job, that’s some fuckin’ dedication, Reyes,” he said, and then he gestured at his companion. “We’ve only got one new signup so far - Reyes, meet Hanzo Shimada. He’s Genji’s brother, it’s a  _ long story,  _ ask Genji when we get back. Hanzo, this is my old boss, Gabriel Reyes, who is apparently a fuckin’ vampire.”

“Rude, vaquero,” Gabriel said, without any actual bite. Half-Naked Archer (Hanzo Shimada, wasn’t  _ that  _ a trip, apparently Genji had learned to forgive in the years since Gabriel had known him) bowed, a little stiffly, and Gabriel bowed back. Hanzo’s eyebrows lifted up in what Gabriel suspected was a very subtle expression of surprise. “Good to see Overwatch is getting some new blood. Now go, get back to them.” He waved them off. McCree frowned.

“I told you, you’re comin’ back with us.” He said. Reyes started to protest - there were a hundred reasons he didn’t want to go back - but Jesse just kept going. “C’mon, Reyes - Talon made you, your best bet is to get with us, for protection if nothin’ else. An’ we could use you.” McCree sounded - looked - almost pleading.

Gabriel sighed.

_ 'It’s not gonna be right without Jack,’  _ he thought, but - maybe that was okay. Maybe that  _ could  _ be okay, eventually. It wouldn’t be right without Ana, either, or Gérard, or Amélie, or any of the other agents they’d lost. Mostly, though, it just...wouldn’t be right without  _ Jack. _

Nothing was right without Jack, though, and maybe going back to Overwatch would be the closest he was going to get.

“Fine.” He said. “But if your own people shoot me, I’m leaving, you hear me?” 

For a minute, he thought Jesse was going to do something ridiculous, like cry, or hug him. Instead, the cowboy just grinned.

“Aw, c’mon, Reyes, you know that it’ll practically be  _ affectionate  _ attempted murder.”

 

* * *

 

Fighting back through Talon with McCree and Hanzo felt surprisingly familiar. Hanzo was no Ana Amari, but - it felt good to have a sniper at his back again, and to be fighting with McCree at his side.

When they caught up to the rest of Overwatch, it wasn’t exactly looking what Gabriel would class as  _ good.  _ Reinhardt was doing his best, but with only Lena and Genji for backup and all of them having to cover Angela, it wasn’t looking good, especially since they had to carefully avoid the massive, deep well in the center of the courtyard where Talon had pinned them down.

“McCree.” He said. “Tell Tracer and Genji to get behind Reinhart’s shield.” McCree nodded, and repeated the order, which was quickly followed.

Gabriel inhaled slowly, then exhaled, and focused, tossing aside his old guns and forming a pair of new ones. 

He shadow-stepped from his position in an alley to the middle of a chunk of Talon fighters, who took a moment to stare in shock.

He reached deep down, for all the anger and rage and fury, for the sparking  _ viciousness  _ he had felt in the first moment after the bomb went off, when Jack was curled under him groaning in pain and all he wanted to do was get them out so that he could get his revenge.

“ _Die,”_ he growled, “ _die,_ ** _die!”_** It tumbled out, as he became a twisting mass of shadow and shotguns, firing rapidly in all directions.    


When he was done, he stood at the center of a heap of dead Talon agents, with a trail of bodies behind him, and he realized that he was very much the center of attention.

Angela broke formation first, flying around Reinhardt and bodily crashing into him. It was the most enthusiastic hug he had received in a long time - before he died, even, if he was being honest.

“Gabriel!” Angela practically sobbed his name, burying her face in his shoulder, seemingly heedless of him still mostly being kited up as Reaper. Genji very carefully stepped out from behind the shield, eyeing him warily.

“It is you,” Genji said, sounding both wary and wondering. 

“You were dead,” Angela sobbed, quietly, “I could not save you, you were  _ gone.” _

“You’re better at your job than even you know, Doc,” Gabriel said, fondly. “Whatever you did just took a while to take.” He exhaled. “Metz was a traitor. Not the only one, either. I can show you evidence, once we’re out of here, but you’re going to have to trust me for now. I’ve been working on taking Talon down from the inside, and on picking off all the Overwatch and Blackwatch agents who worked for them. They made me - after Gibraltar, I think - and they were here for _ me,  _ you just got in the way.” He half-smiled. “I think they were supposed to be Metz’s extraction, if you couldn’t get here in time. Too bad for him, really.”

Reinhardt took a long moment of consideration, but he finally lowered his shield and set aside his hammer. He attempted to remain serious for a moment, but then he broke into a grin, and Tracer darted out from behind him with a wide smile on  _ her  _ face.

“Welcome back, Commander Reyes!” Reinhardt boomed, delighted. Tracer just threw herself on him, and then so did Genji, and suddenly Gabriel Reyes, Reaper, terrifying force of nature, possibly Death Himself, was the center of a very excited group hug.

“Cannot believe this,” Gabriel muttered, glancing back at McCree, who just grinned and tipped his hat, and Hanzo, who raised an eyebrow in clear amusement. No help there, obviously.

Reinhard scooped all four of them up, and that was about when he was Done.

“Alright,” Gabriel grumbled, “enough of this, we have to go. Talon might still have reinforcements in the area.”

“And we will defeat them as we have defeated the ones here!” Reinhardt declared, grinning and setting them down, then swinging his hammer over his shoulder. “Come! Torbjörn awaits at the safehouse, he will be glad to see you, as well.”

It was strange, Gabriel thought, how very familiar this all felt. How very much like home.

 

* * *

 

He noticed it as they were loading up in the transport and preparing to call Winston - Angela seemed nervous. Antsy, even. She kept glancing over at him, eyes bright with what he suspected were more tears, and he wondered if she felt guilty for what her medical miracle had done to him. It was hard to be sure, when she was being insistently close-lipped, but when they sat around the holocall machine she made herself as small as possible and fixed her gaze on her lap, and whatever else, it was clear she was thinking very, very hard about something.

When Winston picked up, it seemed that the first thing he noticed was Gabriel’s presence. He couldn’t resist a cheeky grin and accompanying little finger-wave, and Winston frowned darkly.

“ _ Gabriel?” _ The scientist asked, and Reyes huffed out a laugh.

“Turns out I’m a lot harder to kill than anyone anticipated.” He said. “Sorry, by the by, about the whole ‘monkey’ thing, that was out of line.” Of all the things he could have apologized for, that seemed at least the most  _ basic. _

“I trust you have a very good explanation for all of this,” Winston said. Reyes huffed, and explained, this time in more detail, the specifics of his work as Reaper - how just before the explosion at Watchpoint: Zurich he had discovered the plans to assassinate Jack, how he had tried to stop it but was too late - he winced, then, thinking again of how it felt to have Jack curled up underneath him, dying, and how he had failed in his very last self-appointed mission of  _ at least saving Jack - _ and how he had woken up a few days later in Arlington Cemetery. How he had wraithed his way out of his grave, and how he had donned the identity of Reaper and started hunting traitors in Overwatch. 

How he had meant to tear Talon apart from the inside out.

The other agents asked questions, pressed for details, but through all of it, Angela was uncharacteristically silent.

Finally, when he was finished, she looked up from her lap, and sat stiffly upright.

“There is something you all need to know,” she said. “I have spent five years keeping this confidence, but...you are alive, Gabriel, he would...want you to know.” He narrowed his eyes, leaning forward. “Jack is alive.”

Gabriel felt like the floor had fallen out from under him and he was freefalling.

“ _ What? _ ” He heard Reinhardt ask, shocked, maybe even a little hurt. It sounded a little distant, because he kept turning those three words over and over in his head.  _ Jack is alive. Jack is alive. _

_ Jack is alive. _

“He survived his injuries in Zurich - primarily because Gabriel took the brunt of the blast’s damage. But when I told him I had lost Gabriel…” Angela swallowed, and looked down again. “He told me he was not sure he could lead Overwatch alone. He convinced me that it was better if he died, too; that perhaps he could discover what truly happened if he was operating on his own.” She was definitely barely holding back tears. “He disappeared from my infirmary that night, and I have not seen him since, but - he communicate with me, sometimes. Lets me know that he is still alive.”

“We have to find him,” Gabriel said, with absolutely no hesitation. There was no other possible answer. He  _ had  _ to find Jack, had to see him again, had to confirm for himself, with his own eyes, that Jack was really still breathing. That he  _ hadn’t  _ died failing to save the man he loved. “He’ll come back. He has to.” Surely Jack wouldn’t refuse to help the organization he had built with his own hands. 

“I am sure he will come around if it is you asking him,” Genji said, and McCree nodded.

For the first time in five years, Gabriel Reyes felt the flickering flame of something like  _ hope  _ in his chest.  _ Jack was alive _ . If Jack was alive, if Jack agreed to come back with them, everything might just be okay again.

Overwatch might even feel like home.


	5. Chapter 5

Hanzo could not say that he was  _ surprised  _ to not be the only one awake at pushing four in the morning, but he could say he was  _ startled  _ that when he was slipping into the kitchen to make a pot of tea, the light was already on and there was someone at the table.

He was less surprised that it was Reyes, leaning back in a chair with a cup of what smelled like coffee, perhaps, but also like something almost unbearably sweet, with a tablet propped up on a stand in front of him.

“Shimada-san,” Reyes greeted roughly. “You’re up late.” Hanzo regarded him with a raised eyebrow, and Reyes shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee. “I don’t sleep,” he said, by way of explanation. “Or, I don’t need to.” Hanzo frowned faintly. That seemed something odd to be so cavalier about - and yet somehow Reyes seemed not to care at all. Perhap it simply became a fact of life, after a time.

“I simply do not sleep well.” Hano hoped Reyes would leave it at that - and he seemed content to, with just a nod. Hanzo relaxed from tension he had not realized he was carrying - this was Genji’s former commander; Hanzo had been certain he would have words for the man that had nearly murdered one of his agents.

“To be honest, I’m surprised it’s just the two of us,” Reyes said dryly, leaning forward again and staring intently at whatever was on the tablet. “McCree used to have a shit time sleeping, he’s probably at the practice range.” The casual way he said it felt like a knife somewhere in the vicinity of Hanzo’s chest, and his hands stilled in their careful filling of the tea kettle. It wasn’t Reyes’s fault, not really, he certainly had no idea of Hanzo’s feelings for the cowboy. Still, hearing someone else so casually referring to his sleeping habits -- perhaps he needn’t worry so much about his own feelings at all, because there was someone McCree would be returning to.

He refocused himself on the motions of making tea, trying not to think too hard about the ache slowly settling in his chest.

“I see,” he said, simply, just in case Reyes was expecting a response. Reyes made a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement, clearly absorbed in whatever it was he was reading. Hanzo moved around him to prepare his tea, careful not to bump into the man, and Reyes didn’t acknowledge him again until Hanzo actually sat down at the table across from him, when he drew his eyes up from the tablet.

“You’re a hell of a shot,” Reyes said. “Genji talked you up, but I wasn’t sure I believed  _ anyone  _ could be that good with a bow and arrow. I was wrong.” 

“Genji...spoke of me? When he was in your Blackwatch?” Hanzo asked. He was fairly certain he was treading deeper into waters that were going to be painful for him, because surely that was shortly after...shortly after he had nearly murdered his brother, and it was only “nearly” because Overwatch had scooped him up and Doctor Ziegler had worked a miracle, as she had on the man in front of him.

“More often than you’d think,” Reyes said, taking a sip of his coffee concoction. “Mostly after we got far enough into taking apart Shimada clan operations to figure out that you weren’t there anymore and they were having a crisis of leadership. He surprised me, with how hopeful he was, that kid. Angry, but hopeful.” Reyes snorted. “Come to think of it, that describes both of the Blackwatch agents I can actually say with certainty aren’t Talon.” Hanzo raised his eyebrows, filing away the information about his brother for later. 

“I have difficulty picturing McCree angry.” He admitted, picturing the laid-back cowboy he knew.

“That’s because you didn’t know McCree straight out of Deadlock,” Reyes said. “God, he hated the whole world back then, hated everyone in it - I think he hated me for a while.” He sounded almost fond.

“You two were...close,” Hanzo said, as neutrally as he could manage despite what he could absolutely identify as jealousy roiling in his gut. Not fair, not right, he had  _ no right,  _ he would  _ never  _ have the right to be jealous of who McCree spent his time with, and yet he could not help himself. Reyes’s gaze cut sharply back to him, and he narrowed his eyes for a moment, and then he  _ laughed. _ Hanzo blinked, then flushed, turning his attention to his tea while Reyes got himself back under control. 

“I think that’s the  _ politest  _ anyone’s ever been when suggesting I slept with McCree, usually it’s more of an accusation,” he said, once he was done. “ _ Madre de Dios _ , yes, we were close, but not like  _ that.  _ He’s like my dumbass little brother, or my kid.”

Hanzo did not even try to pretend he didn’t feel immensely relieved. Reyes raised his eyebrows, looking thoroughly amused.

“I imagine you’re asking for personal reasons?” He said, and there was a slight teasing lilt to his voice. Hanzo flushed. It seemed _everyone_ was willing to rib him regarding his apparently very unsubtle attraction to the cowboy.  


“It does not matter,” he said, quickly, and then, “what have you been working on?” Reyes gave him a look that said he absolutely saw through Hanzo’s utterly transparent deflection but was going to let it go. 

“Tracking sightings of a vigilante calling himself Soldier: 76.” Reyes said. “I heard of him when I was working as Reaper, and we had a couple near-misses -- he’s been raiding Overwatch bases, so have I, we nearly hit the same one at the same time two or three times -- but I didn’t think much of him. There was no evidence to suggest he was Talon, so I figured...deal with it later.” He shrugged his shoulders. 

“I have heard of Seventy-Six,” Hanzo said, and then he wrinkled his nose briefly, “by which I mean, I suppose I should clarify, that I had eight separate criminal organizations approach me about having him assassinated. I turned the job down each time,” he said. “I do not prefer to kill vigilantes who help the helpless. I much prefer to kill the type of people that put hits out on them.” Reyes raised his eyebrows.

“You do fit right in here,” he said, sounding amused still. “Anyway, I didn’t think much of it before, but...now that I know Jack’s alive? I think he might be Seventy-Six.” 

“Why?” Hanzo prompted.

“The interest in Overwatch, for one. I doubt Jack was able to leave us getting blown up alone any more than I was. The fighting style -- it’s a little more how I used to fight, but Jack and I worked closely together for almost thirty years, we picked up each other’s tricks.” Hanzo nodded along. “The pulse rifle. Jack loved his damn pulse rifle more than he loved a lot of people,” Reyes’s voice had the tone of an old joke. “And the name.”

“The name?” Hanzo inquired.

“When we were in the SEP,” Reyes elaborated, “we all had numbers the scientists called us by instead of our names. Made for a convenient way to detach, I guess, because a whole lot of candidates didn’t make it.” He frowned, faintly. “Anyway - Jack was Seventy-Six. It...makes sense that he’d use that again.” Hanzo nodded. “Individually, not much, but taken together…”

“This is likely our best lead on Commander Morrison, short of asking Angela to send him an email asking him to meet.” Hanzo said. He could see the value in having the old Strike-Commander back - someone feared and respected in equal measure, a recognizable face, a natural leader to defer to. 

“He’d refuse anyway, if Jack’s gotten any better at spotting ambushes.” Reyes huffed. “He must’ve, without someone watching his six.”

There was something longing in Reyes’s tone that hit a little too close to home for Hanzo. 

“I think he’s in Dorado,” Reyes said, after a long moment of silence. “There’s been some sightings, and local news reports about a gang having trouble with their shipments. Plus, there’s a LumériCo plant there.” Hanzo raised his eyebrows. “LumériCo’s a front for Talon, I think. Or at least they’re so twisted up in each other they might as well be.” He frowned. “Hope Winston is willing to send us out again, because if Jack’s smart - and he is - he won’t be in Dorado long.”

Reyes took a last swig of his coffee, then stood up, taking it over to the sink, and briefly fixing Hanzo with a rather serious expression.

“And talk to McCree. He’d probably like it.” 

Hanzo sank into his chair and refused to dignify that with an answer.

 

* * *

Reyes got Winston to call a briefing fairly early, and Hanzo was warmed to see the increasing number of Overwatch operatives present. It was beginning to feel like a proper organization, not a group held together by not much more than hope.

“I have what I’m pretty sure is a lead on Jack,” Reyes said, and he launched into his explanation, everything he had told Hanzo last night, all the little pieces of evidence that suggested to him that the fugitive vigilante Soldier: 76 was most likely Jack Morrison. Hanzo found himself glancing over at McCree, wondering if Reyes was right and he’d spent his night at the practice range. It felt too much like prying to ask, and Hanzo was not at all sure he had the right to pry. 

When Reyes was done with his explanation, he turned off the holodisplay he had used, and looked over the assembled group.

“I’m going to need a team. Five people, plus me - a small strike group that can get in and out. Angela?” He looked over at the doctor. She nodded, sharply, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Of course, Gabriel,” she said.

“I’m comin’,” McCree said, standing up. “Ain’t no way I wouldn’t, sir.” Reyes huffed.

“Alright, _vaquero_. Who else?” He asked.

“I will,” Hanzo volunteered, and McCree turned and flashed him a genuine grin. Hanzo found himself managing a smile in return, and tried to ignore the little flip his heart did when McCree’s eyes widened seeing it.

“I would not let you recover the Commander without me!” Reinhardt said. “And if this LumériCo is truly funding Talon, they must be exposed.” Reyes didn’t even try to hide his grin.

“And me!” Lena bounced over the desk she was behind. “I -- Widowmaker might be there, if it’s Talon, and I…” Reyes held up a hand, and there was a shared glance, some sort of mutual understanding. Hanzo narrowed his eyes. What did Reyes and Lena know about Talon’s prized sniper?

A question for another time, perhaps.

“Good,” Reyes said, “we leave in two hours. Pack light. Hopefully, if all goes well, we come back with Jack.”

Hanzo did not want to consider all the ways things could  _ not  _ go well. They were myriad - Gabriel could be wrong; the man under Soldier: 76’s could be someone other than Jack Morrison. Morrison could refuse to come back. Morrison could get himself killed. 

Still, he had not missed the way that Reyes spoke of Morrison, the way he insistently used his first name - nor had he missed the emphasis his brother had placed on the likelihood of Morrison returning at Reyes’s request. The two were old comrades, that much was clear. Perhaps Reyes would have a better chance of persuading Morrison to come back.

Genji appeared beside him as if thinking of him had somehow summoned his brother.

“I am pleased you volunteered for this mission, brother,” he said. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that a certain cowboy is going, would it?” Genji gently elbowed Hanzo in the side, and Hanzo huffed frustratedly.

“Perhaps I merely wanted to be helpful.” He said. “I am a member of this team; I must contribute.” A reasonable enough explanation. “Being able to watch McCree’s six is merely a secondary benefit.” His tone was perfectly imperious, and Genji made an interested noise.

“A  _ secondary benefit?”  _ He teased, and then he laughed. “You two would be good for each other,” he said, clapping a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “And I would like to see you happy again.” Then Genji walked off, probably to communicate with the mentor he spoke of regularly. The omnic monk had yet to commit himself to Overwatch’s cause, but he was all too willing to offer Genji his continued guidance from Nepal.

Hanzo stared after him, genuinely surprised into stillness. It was difficult to think of himself as deserving happiness -- so in that, perhaps he would have to disappoint his brother. Still, it warmed him to know that Genji at least  _ wanted  _ that for him.

He wanted it for Genji, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gabriel reyes: i drink coffee as black as my soul  
> gabriel reyes: adds cream, sugar, caramel, and cinnamon, probably only skipped whipped cream because there wasn't any


	6. Chapter 6

The majority of the flight from Gibraltar to Dorado saw Gabriel pacing the length of the carrier. He was sure he was dramatically bleeding smoke as he walked, but he couldn’t manage to make himself care. It was...not easy, to imagine confronting Jack again. During the last year or so of Overwatch’s official existence - longer than that, if he was being honest, but especially then - almost all their conversations as Commander Reyes and Strike-Commander Morrison had descended into arguments. Screaming fights over Blackwatch methods, over Gabriel being tired of him and his men being overlooked, over Gabriel’s slowly growing knowledge that Blackwatch was slipping through his fingers and Jack’s refusal to  _ see  _ that something was  _ wrong. _

They had apologized after, when they let themselves be Gabriel and Jack, and Jack had made a thousand promises -- some of which he’d followed through on, but a lot of it…

Fuck. Gabriel was half-certain them seeing each other again was going to turn into Morrison vs. Reyes, Round 300 or so, because there was no one who could piss him off the way Jack Morrison pissed him off, and that was the  _ last  _ thing he wanted after thinking Jack was dead for half a decade. So much of what he’d been angry about then had seemed so  _ insignificant  _ under the weight of the thought that Jack was dead, and that was what their disagreements had come to - that because they’d been split down the middle, they hadn’t been able to stop what was happening.

Divide and conquer, Gabriel had realized far too late. They’d been played off each other like a pair of fucking pawns, and he refused to let that happen again.

“Hey,  _ jefe _ ,” McCree said, finally, “you alright? You’re gonna wear a hole through the floor, you keep that up.”

“I’m fine,” Gabriel said, gruffly, dropping himself into a seat and buckling in. They were close to landing anyway - it was probably for the best that he settled in. He would deal with looking Jack in the face for the first time in six years when it actually happened.

 

* * *

 

The streets of Dorado itself hadn’t changed much, in the time since Gabriel had been here. He’d been Blackwatch commander then, and it had been for an op - disruption of arms trading being done by a local gang. Blackwatch was good at its job - much like the Deadlocks around Santa Fe, slightly further north, they’d completely eradicated the gang.

They were holed up in a hotel that was at least livable - better than the ratholes a lot of Blackwatch missions had taken Gabriel to, because travel budgets were for  _ Overwatch.  _ They’d all met in the hotel’s attached restaurant - because it was decent enough to have one of those - to go over the plans. Somehow, he’d ended up in the lead - but then, this felt like  _ his  _ op, his mission to  _ bring Jack home. _

(Overwatch would absolutely feel like home again, if he had Jack at his side.)

They’d all dressed down to civvies, though he was fairly certain no one was unarmed. Also, for McCree, “civvies” apparently meant “no chest armor,” which was a step up from Hanzo’s interpretation, which was “wear the other sleeve.”

They looked like tourists, which was  _ hopefully  _ useful.

Gabriel took a breath, and began to lay out his plan, for this part of the mission.

“Split up. Strictly recon - we’ll be looking for Los Muertos activity, since 76 has been getting all up in their business, and we’ll want to check out the power plant, see what kind of approaches there are in case that’s his goal.” There were nods all around. “Angela, Reinhardt, you’re team one. Check out the quarter around the Mission. McCree, Shimada, team two, you’re checking the city center. Oxton, with me, we’re team three, and we’re going for the power plant. Stick with your partner, do  _ not  _ separate, do  _ not  _ get separated.  Comm if you see anything, and for the love of God,  _ try  _ to be unobtrusive. Let’s go.” 

Lena fell in step beside him, and they left first, slipping onto the city streets of Dorado. Minutes later, there were check-ins coming in as the rest of the team slipped out and in their own directions.

He and Lena wandered, slowly, carefully edging towards the power plant and doing their best to look like tourists. Lena was a consummate professional despite her upbeat attitude - frankly, short of Jack, Gabriel wasn’t sure he could have asked for a better mission partner. Hell, she could blink up to a roof, scan for security, and recall or blink back before anyone even noticed, always with a full report, and between her time abilities and his ability to turn himself into shadow and slip around unseen, they were putting together a full picture of LumériCo’s security as the day wore on and the sun began to set over Dorado.

A picture that Gabriel was very unpleased with.

“They’re paranoid,”  he said, lowly, into the comms. “This place is covered top to fucking bottom, and I see more moving in. And a lot of their extra security is Talon - they’ve got the obnoxious getup Talon puts its people in.”

“The people speak of Seventy-Six,” Reinhardt said, which provided something of an explanation. “He is becoming a popular figure here, ever since he saved a young girl from Los Muertos, and I suspect Talon has become aware he is a danger to them.” Gabriel could  _ hear  _ the smile in Reinhardt’s voice. “That very young lady recognized Angela and I from an old Overwatch poster she has.”

“Oh, God, is it the protectors one, because that poster was awful and you all know it,” Reyes said. He heard McCree burst out laughing.

“Fuck, that’s the one where Jack’s in the background all  _ dramatic  _ an’  _ heroic,  _ right?” He asked.

“I think Mercy and I looked fantastic on it,” Lena huffed. Reinhardt laughed, too.

“That is the one, Commander,” he acknowledged. “I swore her to secrecy. She seemed to find the prospect absolutely delightful.” Gabriel sighed.  _ Kids.  _ “She was able to tell me a bit more about our vigilante friend - and the way she described him, it...does sound like Jack. A somewhat more cynical Jack,”

“Dying will do that to you,” Gabriel grumbled. Reinhardt made a noise of acknowledgement.

“But Jack. It seems you were correct.” Gabriel let out a tiny relieved sigh.

“Good to know I still know Jack Morrison,” he said, and he laughed a little. “Tracer and I will keep investigating. The rest of you, do the same.” There were acknowledgements on the comm, and Gabriel carefully dematerialized and rematerialized in a dark corner around the way. More guards there, and they looked to be chatting.

“I’m going to get in closer. Tracer, cover me,” he said, voice low, and then he melted completely into his wraith form, sticking to the shadows and blending with them when he settled near enough to hear the conversation. They were speaking rapid-fire Spanish - his first and second language, practically. 

He slipped away before he lost control of the wraith and ended up solidifying right where they could see him, frowning when he settled and solidified next to Lena.

“There’s a shipment coming in tonight, and they’re expecting trouble. Los Muertos or 76, I’m not sure which, neither are they. Might be both.” 

“So we move tonight,” there was Shimada’s voice, the first time he’d spoken up since they’d touched down. 

“Regroup at the hotel. Arm up. We’ve gotta be prepared for all kinds of resistance getting to Seventy-Six.” Gabriel said. “We’re leaving here with him whether he’s Jack or not - he’s exactly the kind of man we need.”

He would not deny how painfully much he hoped it  _ was  _ Jack.

 

* * *

 

Breaking into LumériCo was  _ not  _ supposed to be this hard. He hadn’t quite made it to the plant - he was pinned down in one of Dorado’s many courtyards, this one near the statue of President Portrero - but there was much more resistance than Jack had anticipated. Maybe he had been stupid and he had given himself away. Maybe Talon was just getting paranoid. Whatever it was, he was meeting heavy resistance, and he’d already taken a shot to the side - right where he’d gotten shrapnel from the damn hand grenade, which was  _ weeks  _ ago but which continued to aggravate him, enhanced healing or not, because that was the kind of month he was having and he kept goddamn getting injured there.

He leaned around the corner to fire off a set of Helix rockets, and felt a bullet graze his shoulder.

“Fuck,” he growled, low, pressing a hand to the new sluggishly bleeding wound.

From somewhere on the other side of his cover came the loud report of shotguns.

Once upon a time, that sound would have been the best thing in the world, because it would mean that Gabriel was there to save his ass for the hundredth time. This time, though, it couldn’t be, because Gabriel was  _ dead.  _

(Dead saving him, naturally.)

There was another set of shotgun blasts, and then there were scream of horror - and Jack leaned around, and stared for far longer than he should ever have been out of cover.

Blasting through Talon agents like it was nothing was a tall figure in all black, wielding a pair of truly massive shotguns. He looked like every description Jack had heard of the mercenary who called himself Reaper, but as far as Jack knew Reaper was an at least occasional ally of Talon. Why was he  _ attacking  _ them? 

Jack was out of cover far too long - this time, the bullet that hit him didn’t graze his shoulder, it went right through. He swore, and Reaper turned, and --

No mask. Reaper wasn’t wearing his mask, his...his trademark, practically, and he knew the face underneath. 

Clearly he was hallucinating, somehow, because it looked like  _ Gabriel,  _ like the culmination of all his wishful thinking, and he ducked back around behind the wall, hoping that next time he poked out to fire the apparition would be gone, or at least back to being Reaper and not...not Gabriel, not some kind of ghost he was making up for himself.

All of a sudden Reaper-Gabriel- _ no-this-couldn’t-be-happening  _ was right in front of him.

“Jack?” he asked, an almost pained whisper. He reached up to rest a hand on his cheek, careful of the claws on his gauntlets, red eyes wide and pleading. (The eye color wasn’t right, but everything else  _ was,  _ painfully so, and --- who was to say dying hadn’t changed a few things about Gabriel Reyes?)

“ _ Gabriel, _ ” Jack’s voice cracked on the name, and when the apparition reached around to carefully lift his mask off, he didn’t try to stop him. It was set aside gently, and the gauntlets disappeared, and there were warm hands on either side of his face.

“Hey. Jack.  _ Cariño.  _ We’ve got this. Stay here.” He knew that voice, knew that tone, knew those  _ eyes. _  Nonono this was  _ impossible,  _ he’d spent five years in mourning and… “I’ll be back for you, I promise, and then we’ll find whatever you came here to find.”

Gabriel melted back into darkness, and Jack slowly sank to the ground, pulling out a biotic field and activating it. Gabriel was -- Gabriel was  _ alive.  _ Other familiar shooting cadences joined Gabriel’s shotguns - Lena’s pulse pistols, the powerful  _ crack  _ of Peacemaker. His team. His people. Come for him. 

He thought he’d given up the chance to ever have that happen again.

“Mercy!” Gabe’s commander’s bark, so familiar, so welcome. “It’s definitely Jack, he’s hurt.”

“On my way!” Angela said, and he heard the sound of her activating the Valkyrie suit’s wings, soaring over the wall and landing next to him.

“Cover the others,” he said, “I’ll be okay.” He gestured to the field he’d set up. “Not much you can do for me that this isn’t already.”

“Let me stay with you,” Angela requested, reaching out and taking his hand in both of hers, then pulling him to his feet. “Let me help you.” She spun her staff and pointed it at him, and a blue stream of light flowed from it to him. “A new addition to the staff’s capabilities - it will help your focus and aiming.” Jack could already feel it working, and he grabbed his mask and quickly fixed it back in place, leaning around the wall and flicking on the visor.

“Tactical Visor, activated,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

Between it and Angela’s new stream, it was almost too easy. He could see every vital point to aim for, and barely had to point to send pulse ammunition ripping through center mass. Angela cheered, behind him - he wondered if this was her first field test of this new stream. Seemed like it.

(Just like her, really, to try something new right in the middle of a firefight. Still, he couldn’t complain, it was  _ absolutely  _ helping.)

Once the area was cleared, Gabriel dropped his probably-empty shotguns, and he vanished and rematerialized next to Jack.

“Thought I told you to stay in cover.” He said.

“Couldn’t let you have all the fun,” Jack replied. He scanned the battlefield, taking in the fallen Talon operatives, and the first time he saw it he almost skipped over - but, yes, several bodies were riddled with  _ arrows. _ “...When did Overwatch get an archer?”

“Hanzo Shimada. Finest shot I’ve seen since Ana Amari,” McCree said, and he was practically glowing with pride. “He’s up there somewhere,” as the cowboy spoke, a figure dropped off one of the rooftops nearby - smaller than most of the agents present, but all corded muscle, holding a bow. He bowed to Jack, who returned the gesture.

“My brother invited me to join Overwatch after Winston initiated the recall.” He said.

“Winston.” Jack huffed. “Should’ve known it was him, when the recall went out.”

“Jack,” there was Lena, and she looked terribly hangdog, “if you knew about the recall, why didn’t you come back?” He flinched, glanced over at Gabriel, wished he had a good answer that wasn’t “well, Gabriel wasn’t going to be there, so it didn’t feel like I should.”

“I…” Jack sighed. “I had my reasons.” Lena frowned, like she thought that wasn’t good enough, but McCree put a hand on her shoulder to still further protests.

“C’mon,” he said, “we can argue ‘bout why Jack didn’t come runnin’ once we’ve  _ finished  _ ruinin’ Talon’s day,” he gestured in the direction of the LumériCo plant. 

“An excellent idea!” Reinhardt bellowed. “I will ensure we get inside.” Gabriel groaned.

“We could also consider an approach that won’t have everyone in the plant running for us,” Gabriel said, and he reached over, resting a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “What was your plan,  _ comandante?” _

The title actually felt affectionate, like it had been in the years between them settling the issue of the promotion between them and when everything started to fall apart.

“They’re taking in a shipment tonight,” Jack said. “I thought we could ride it in.”

 

* * *

 

With his team at his back, Jack was amazed at how much easier the infiltration was. LumériCo was prepared for one vigilante, not for the combined might of five Overwatch operatives, two of whom were clearly operating supernaturally - Lena with her chronal accelerator abilities and Gabriel with...whatever he could do, now, that let him turn into fluttering shadows and slip around and behind their opponents. It was incredible to watch, the efficiency of the team working together. Shimada was a brilliant sniper, providing cover for the rest of them, and Reinhardt’s shield and hammer made for both very effective protection and  _ extremely  _ effective obstacle clearing.

Really, Talon didn’t stand a chance.

The team got him into the records room, and there, he was able to download a large chunk of their database. 

It felt suspiciously easy - the files seemed like they’d already been cracked into, even set aside for him to find.

Someone else had been fiddling around in LumériCo’s systems, clearly. 

There wasn’t much time to worry, though; they had to get  _ out,  _ too, and ultimately the best extraction plan was indeed to just...have Reinhardt blow out a wall and book it. They split up, so as not to be followed, and Gabriel guided him to the hotel where they were regrouping. They would stay for the night, then take off for Gibraltar in the early hours of the morning. Gabriel even guided Jack up to the room he was using - one (king-size) bed, but that...didn’t seem like an issue, to Jack, when curling up against Gabriel’s chest sounded like the best way to end the day.

Gabriel didn’t even have to get changed - his Reaper gear shifted to boxers with barely a thought and a swirl of smoke - and Jack found himself staring. He wondered if Gabriel maintained his body by force of will, because it looked exactly as perfectly sculpted as he remembered. 

Jack slid off his mask and set it aside, and then peeled off the rest of his Soldier: 76 uniform, suddenly feeling self-conscious. He felt like he had aged twenty years, and Gabriel didn’t look like he’d aged a day.

He stopped worrying when Gabriel stepped over to him and cupped his face, pressing their lips together.

“I missed you  _ so much, cariño, _ ” he said, when he pulled back from the almost frustratingly chaste kiss. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I thought I’d lost you, too,” Jack said, barely able to make himself speak. “I -  _ Gabriel. _ ” He sighed the other man’s name, leaning in to claim his lips in another kiss. This,  _ this _ was what he had been missing for so long. It felt like something important was slotting back into place, some necessary piece of the puzzle of his life he hadn’t even realized was missing being fitted back into place. Gabriel pulled back again, smiling.

“Welcome home .” He said.  


And it didn't matter that this was a slightly dirty hotel room in Dorado - Gabriel was here, back in his arms, somehow inexplicably forgave him for all the things he had done wrong. There was plenty lying unaddressed between them, but that could wait.

For now, Jack was _home._


	7. Chapter 7

Jack woke the next morning to the sensation of another body curled against his, and a hand on his chest, fiddling with the dog tags he’d been wearing since Angela had handed them to him almost six years before. He wondered if all of this was bleed-over from a very pleasant dream, the one he had last night where Gabriel was alive and, somehow, miraculously, still loved him; the one where he’d had a team that came for him and wanted him to come back to Overwatch even though he’d failed them all, and he’d said yes because all he wanted was to go home again. That dream. The one that was far too good to be true.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, because if he was going to wake up alone he wanted to get it over with, feeling an empty ache in his chest that he couldn’t quite place.

Except there was no reason for it, because laying there in bed with him, wearing a faint smile and nothing else, was Gabriel Reyes, and it was his body curled against Jack’s and his hand fiddling with those old dog tags.

“I’d say I can’t believe you wore my dog tags for half a decade, Jack, but I absolutely can.” Gabriel’s voice was soft and warm, and words aside Jack could almost believe they were back in one of the rooms they’d shared at a hundred different Watchpoints or in a thousand different seedy hotels on missions over two decades of soldiering side by side. Some of the details weren’t right - Gabriel’s eyes, mostly, were different, black sclera and bright red irises - but the faint smile and the soft tone were all things he could have heard at any of the better points in their relationship. The little wrong bits made it more real, anyway. There was no way Jack would have dreamed eyes like that onto Gabriel, or added the little wisps of black smoke that curled off him, or gone for the detail of him being just a little colder than he should be.

“I needed something to remind me why I was doing this,” Jack said, open and honest in his half-awake state. “And it...felt like having you with me, or as close as I was gonna get.”

“Oh, Jack,” Gabriel sighed, and tugged him forward by the tags into a slow, gentle kiss. “I missed you, too.” 

“Do you want them back?” Jack asked, reaching up to wrap a hand around Gabriel’s. The other man shook his head.

“I kinda like the idea of you wearing my tags; it’s a little like a promise.” Gabriel laughed, dryly. “Besides, I won’t need them for identification anymore. When Angela dragged me out of the grave, she made sure I’d never go back in.”

“That’s morbid,” Jack grumbled, resting his head on Gabriel’s chest. “What, you can’t die, now?”

“Far as I can tell,” Gabriel said, and then he sighed and slowly began to disentangle himself from Jack. “Come on, let’s go, we can’t make Reinhardt wrangle the kids alone.” Jack laughed a little, but followed Gabriel out of bed. If Gabriel was real, that meant the rest of it was too - which meant he had a  _ team  _ again, and he should be seeing them.

 

* * *

 

Of course it all went to shit halfway to the transport, while they were crossing through Dorado’s central square in the eerie light of predawn, because having nice things for sustained periods was apparently for people not named Jack Morrison. He watched Gabriel tense and scan the rooftops, and then he swore under his breath and bodily shoved Jack against the wall.

“ _ Cover!” _ He barked, and then Jack felt something small and solid hit him in the chest.

A bullet, he realized slightly dimly, Gabriel had just taken a bullet for him. Gabriel started dragging, pulling him away from the exposed courtyard and into an alley. Jack’s brain was still stuck on the fact that Gabriel had  _ taken a bullet for him,  _ which meant that right after he got Gabriel back, Gabriel was going to die for him  _ again  _ and  _ no no no  _ that was not what wa supposed to happen but --

Gabriel seemed almost alarmingly fine, barking orders into the comm, telling Tracer to get on the roof and flush out the shooter and Reinhardt to bring up his shield and provide cover. The rough voice of the archer they’d picked up (Hanzo, the one McCree had looked at like he hung the moon) informed them that he could see others approaching, Los Muertos gangsters.

“Los Muertos,” Jack heard McCree laugh, “well, if they wanna be the dead so damn much, who’re we to deny ‘em?” 

No one seemed particularly worried, which was what was worrying him. They’d all seen it, hadn’t they? Senn Gabriel take that bullet? But no one was reacting and -- 

Jack knew he was hyperventilating, and it must have been loud enough to be heard, because then there were hands on his face, carefully removing his mask.

“Jack.” Gabriel’s voice. Not pained, not strained. Not showing any signs of distress which was bizarre because he  _ should  _ be dying but then shock was a hell of a drug, wasn’t it? “Jack, look at me.” He did. There was concern in those strange-but-beautiful eyes, and Jack chanced a glance down, to Gabriel’s chest, where there should have been a hole. There wasn’t. “I told you. I’m functionally immortal. One bullet isn’t going to take me down, not now.” 

Jack nodded, slowly.

“Okay,” he said, and then he took a long breath, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Gabriel’s. “Promise me you’ll be okay,” he asked, slightly desperately.

“Only if you promise me the same,” Gabriel replied. Jack nodded, maybe a little too eagerly, and Gabriel sighed. “Alright. Now come on, haven’t you been working on these bastards for months? I’d hate to leave you out of a chance to ruin their day.” Gabriel carefully helped Jack put his mask back in place, and then there was a rush of shadows and he was in his Reaper kit instead of the much less conspicuous hoodie and jeans he’d donned that morning, this time with the mask in place.

When he stepped out of the alley, Jack went with him, and they fell into the kind of fighting pattern they’d had for years, back to back.

Los Muertos would have no idea what hit them.

 

* * *

 

On the rooftops, Lena blinked from place to place as quickly as she could, frowning. This was about where she’d figured the sniper had to be, but there was nothing.

“One building over,” Hanzo’s voice crackled over the comm and surprised her. “I calculated the trajectory.” Of course he did. She’d seen his scatter arrows, it was wholly possible he could do that kind of math in his head.

“Got it!” Lena said, and she booked it for the next rooftop and was greeted by assault rifle fire. She ducked behind a wall and leaned around, to take a quick look.

It was exactly who she feared it might be. Talon’s master marksman, the Widowmaker, fired off another burst of assault fire, making Lena duck back behind the wall, heart pounding. This was the first time they would go toe to toe since London - she felt a brief moment of panic as she considered what might happen. Would she fail again, blink out of time at just the wrong moment and get one of her teammates shot the way she’d let Mondatta die? Would this be the time where Widowmaker tired of playing with her and just shot her once and for all? There were so many possibilities, all of which seemed to end badly.

But she was Lena Oxton. She was  _ Tracer,  _ she had come out of being untethered in time with a sunny smile and a quick quip. She was the fastest fighter on the battlefield, the one who knew Widowmaker best, the one best suited to engage her while everyone else handled Los Muertos. She was the optimist. The ray of sunshine. She could keep being that, for a few more minutes, while she fought the spectre of the woman she loved. 

“It’s Widowmaker, on the roof, but I’ve got it covered, loves! You worry about yourselves, I’ll handle her.” She chirped into the comm, and then she did a combat roll she’d learned from McCree, firing as soon as she came back up on her feet and forcing Widowmaker to retreat. Her heart pounded with adrenaline, and she had to resist its almost narcotic effects, lest she lose the fight before it even properly began. She  couldn’t make herself fire properly at Widowmaker, not when she looked so terrifyingly much like Amélie, but she could harry and chase and drive her away from Lena’s team. That would have to be enough. She’d noticed a pattern - Widowmaker’s missions were always very quick and tight, none of the hours and hours of waiting that a proper military sniper did. She suspected that meant the assassin had a tight pickup window; all she had to do was hold off until then.

“You gonna be okay?” There was Gabriel’s concerned voice on the comm, because of course he would be worrying about her feelings. He was good like that, always had been. He’d checked in with her half a dozen times when Amélie had been missing, just to make sure she was okay. 

“I’ll be fine,” Lena chirped back, doing a quick dodge and firing off another burst of shots that sent Widowmaker dodging back. She kept pushing, driving Widowmaker further and further from her team, only half-listening to the chatter on the comm. It sounded like things were going well, or as well as could be expected, all things considered, and so she pushed forward, getting nice and close, still aiming just to the right or left of her fast-moving, quick-footed target.

“You’re very clever,  _ cherie _ , drawing me out here and away from your team,” Widowmaker teased, and Lena felt her heart clench. She knew that voice. She even knew that  _ tone.  _ She knew that  _ pet name.  _ It hurt so much to hear it used by someone who probably didn’t even remember what it meant, and Lena hesitated just too long because she was taken off guard -- several shots landed right in her chest, and she yelped and recalled before she even hit the ground, sending her three seconds back and giving her a chance to duck and take cover instead of repeating the mistake. Widowmaker laughed, and it was such a painfully familiar laugh, and part of Lena wanted to curl into a ball and cry over what she’d lost. Again.

She couldn’t. Not now. Her team was counting on her; someone much less accidentally immortal than Gabriel might be the one to get shot next, and Angela could work miracles -  _ had  _ worked miracles - but Lena doubted even she could patch a headshot in the field. Lena bounced over the low wall she’d used as cover, firing off a burst of pulse ammunition, and Widowmaker took several more steps back. They were coming up on the mission, and Lena hoped they wouldn’t have to fight inside. That seemed a little wrong, to her, even if she was fairly nonreligious. 

“It worked, didn’t it love? And you’re not gonna get any of them, not this time.” She declared boldly.

“Ah, but I  _ did  _ get one of them, did I not? The traitor Reaper. It is a tragedy that he is so difficult to kill.” She sighed, heavily. “I will have to try again, next time. I wonder,  _ cherie,  _ if I shot through you at the cowboy - Jesse McCree, is his name,  _ non?  _ \- would you blink out of the way and let him die to save yourself?” 

“Amélie, please,” Lena said, and she realized her mistake immediately - or perhaps it wasn’t a mistake, because she watched something flicker across Widowmaker’s face. That was something Lena had never tried before, calling her by name, appealing to the woman who still had to be there. “You don’t really want to do this, do you? They’re your friends too, Jack and Gabriel, Jesse - you  _ know  _ Jesse, you made him crepes, he’d never had ‘em before and you thought that was a tragedy so you made him some and he  _ loved them,  _ and you used to do Angela’s hair for her, and Reinhardt was always at all your ballet shows because he wanted to show his support - come  _ on,  _ Amélie!” She pleaded, a little desperately, and she watched Widowmaker’s face, watched as for a moment there was a flicker of the woman she knew, more than a laugh or a voice or a tone or a pet name, but then her features set back in a grim line and she hefted her rifle again.

Distantly, Lena could hear a helicopter, and then, over the comms, she heard the angry bellow of  _ “ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!” _

They were high enough up, and close enough, that when they both turned, they could see the dragons. Widowmaker made a small noise of what might have been surprise or fear, Lena wasn’t sure. 

“That’ll be Los Muertos getting cleared out, then,” Lena said. “You know, you can come with us,” she offered. "We can help you.” Widowmaker frowned, and shook her head.

“No one can help me,” she said, and she turned, launching her grappling hook and swinging away. She started to leave, but then she paused, and looked back over her shoulder at Lena. She regarded her, briefly, and then said, just loud enough to be heard across the gap between buildings, “but - who is Amélie?”

Lena made a noise of pain, but Widowmaker didn’t stay long enough to get an answer. She launched her hook again, swinging off, and disappeared into the last dregs of the Dorado night.

The sun was starting to rise, and Gabriel was beckoning her back. She had to get her friends home; she could worry about everything else once they were on the transport.

When she was alone in the cockpit of the plane and they were well on their way, autopilot doing most of the work getting them to Spain, she buried her face in her hands and cried the way she had wanted to on the rooftop. 

She had mourned Amélie so many times, she was sure she ought to be numb to it by now, but here she was, doing it all over again. Surely there was only so much of this she could take, surely eventually it would stop feeling like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. She had thought she was over it after Ana. She’d definitely thought she was over it after London, after she watched Widowmaker commit a murder with her own eyes.

Apparently, she was not going to be over it for a very long time.

She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she turned, looking back and up - there was Gabriel, frowning, and she let him pull her into a slightly awkward hug.

“You gonna be okay?” He asked. She sniffled faintly, and shook her head. He sighed, stroking her hair, the sort of parental gesture she’d missed for a long time. “It’s gonna be alright, Lena. We’ll bring her home, I promise.”

Oh, how she wanted to believe him.

“I saw her. Amélie. For a minute, she was Amélie, but then it was gone again,” Lena sobbed. “She’s still in there, Gabe, but -- but it’s buried under all that Widowmaker, I don’t know if we could ever get her out.”

“We’ll find a way.” Gabe said. “We’re Overwatch. I came back from the dead, we pulled you out of the Slipstream, we reconstructed Genji, Jack survived having a building dropped on him - we can fix whatever Talon did to Amélie. We  _ will  _ fix it.”

Lena had never wanted something in her entire life more than she wanted, in that moment, for Gabriel to be right.


	8. Chapter 8

The mood on the transport was relatively subdued, and Hanzo suspected he knew why, even if he did not properly  _ understand.  _ Lena had not turned off her comm during her chase with the Widowmaker, so they had all heard the whole thing - or at least Lena’s half of it. Hanzo knew he was missing a truly incredible amount of context, but he couldn’t see a way to ask for it - not when everyone involved in the mission looked so incredibly strained. Even Reinhardt was subdued; Hanzo had not known the man long, but it was long enough to know that was deeply out of place.

Morrison and Reyes spent the entire flight back, save Reyes’s brief visit to the cockpit, huddled together, pressed side by side. It confirmed every inference Hanzo had made about their relationship - there was no need for anyone to  _ tell him  _ Morrison and Reyes were lovers, when every bit of their body language did it for him.

McCree ended up next to Hanzo, but even he was uncharacteristically silent on the way back. The archer caught him glancing over at the two commanders occasionally, but he never saw fit to actually share his thoughts.

Winston was waiting for them when they touched down; no one looked particularly impressed with that.

“Never fuckin’ ends, does it?” McCree grumbled, just loud enough for Hanzo to hear, and the archer snorted quietly.

“Apparently not,” he replied.

“I hate to catch you all like this,” Winston said, and he even managed to look sincerely guilty, “but we have an opportunity we just can’t afford to pass up, not now. Come with me?” There were looks exchanged, and Morrison made the kind of tired noise that only someone who had been in command for far too long could manage.

“Lead the way,” Reyes said, sounding deeply displeased. Winston sighed and beckoned for them to follow him, but the scientist did pause for a moment.

“Welcome home, Jack,” he said, and that drew a ghost of a smile from the man.

“Thanks,” he said, and then they were off.

Genji was waiting in the conference room, and so was an unfamiliar face - an omnic, who appeared to be...Hanzo squinted, for a moment. Floating, yes.

That, he supposed, would have to be Genji’s teacher, the omnic monk Zenyatta that he had spoken of so often. The one who had helped Genji recover, emotionally, from what Hanzo had done to him. Probably the reason Genji had come to forgive him - maybe, then, the reason Hanzo was not currently a corpse.

Hanzo would have to thank him, if the opportunity arose.

Genji seemed completely undeterred by the somber atmosphere, and in fact flew across the room to greet Morrison with the same sort of enthusiastic hug he had given Reyes.

“Strike-Commander!” He said, voice bright. “So many people seem to be rising from their graves lately - in only the most pleasant of ways. It will be good to have you back.”

“Thanks, Genji,” Morrison looked a little unsure of how to handle the affection.

“Of course,” the ninja bounced off him and back over to the omnic, sweeping to him in a grand gesture. “Everyone, this is my Master, Tekhartha Zenyatta.” The omnic waved, and his expression, though fixed at “serene,” seemed to move to “warm” for a moment, but Hanzo caught Lena tensing out of the corner of his eye for a moment.

Ah, yes. The reports on Tekhartha Mondatta’s shooting had said former Overwatch agent Lena Oxton was present and had attempted to intervene. 

“It is wonderful to meet you all,” Zenyatta said. “I am proud to join your cause.”

“Well damn,” Reyes said, but he strode forward to offer a hand, which Zenyatta took and shook. “We really do get all sorts in Overwatch. Gabriel Reyes.”

“The original Strike Commander, yes,” Zenyatta said, “and Genji’s direct commander while he was in Blackwatch. And the rest of you must be Agents McCree, Oxton, Reinhardt, Morrison, Doctor Ziegler, and Hanzo Shimada. I have heard much about all of you.”

“All terrible, I’m sure,” Reyes said dryly, and Zenyatta laughed, but Hanzo found little humor in the prospect. It was a little too close to the likely truth for him to find it funny.

Winston coughed, drawing everyone’s attention back to him.

“I am sorry,” he said, “but I do need to brief you. While you were flying back, we received an encrypted communication from someone claiming to be a Vishkar architech, prepared to turn whistleblower but requesting our protection. She says she’s going to be at a conference in Lijiang, and we need to send in an extraction team.”

“McCree and both Shimadas, and Tracer to fly them there.” Reyes said, without hesitation. Both Morrison and Winston looked surprised, but McCree was nodding along, and Hanzo saw the wisdom in the arrangement as well. “I’d volunteer myself, but...there’s a lot of shit to take care of here, and the best thing is to send a small team of the agents most familiar with covert operations. A smaller squad will have a much easier time getting in and out, too, with our architech friend, and between the three of them they should be well prepared to handle anything that comes up.”

“I will go too,” Zenyatta said. “I am capable of providing support, as necessary, and while it hopefully will not be, it is always best to be prepared.” Reyes nodded, deferring.

“This is your area of expertise, Gabriel,” Morrison said, briefly touching his shoulder. “I trust you know what you’re doing.” Winston just nodded, looking almost relieved to not be calling the shots for once. 

“When do we leave?” Lena asked, and she almost looked back to her old self, though Hanzo was fairly certain it was a facade.

“As soon as possible. There’s an old Overwatch safehouse in Lijiang - use it, and wait for our contact’s call.” Winston said. “And good luck, agents.”

 

* * *

 

Hanzo slept most of the trip to Lijiang - he suspected he would not have much chance to once they were there, and he needed to be rested to be at his best should it be necessary that he fight. The possibility seemed all too near - nothing had gone as smoothly as planned since his joining Overwatch, and there was no reason to expect anything else now.

Once they made it to the safehouse, Lena passed out on one of the beds, informing them that they should “wake her if she had to shoot something, but not otherwise.” Zenyatta and Genji retreated to meditate, which left Hanzo and McCree alone.

Hanzo glanced over at the gunslinger, considering his options. It might not be fair to ask him about what had transpired in Dorado; about the obvious relationship a number of Overwatch members had with the Widowmaker. About, most properly, the woman Lena had called  _ Amélie. _

Perhaps it would be most fair to ask Lena herself, all things considered.

“Shit,” McCree grumbled, interrupting his musings, “I hate waiting, worst part of these ops.” Hanzo made a noise of agreement.

“We cannot move until we know where this whistleblower is.” He pointed out.

“Could be a trap,” McCree pointed out, and Hanzo nodded. It could be. The Vishkar Corporation certainly had some unpleasant ties - while he had no proof, he had suspicions that several of his contracts while he was working as an assassin had been from Vishkar, handled through third party brokers. Still, all he had were suspicions, which seemed to be the theme. Hopefully this whistleblower was genuine - it was about time someone dragged Vishkar into the light.

“If it is, I suspect the five of us are more than prepared to handle it,” Hanzo said, and surprised himself by meaning it. He was not usually given to optimism, but this team brought it out in him. McCree flashed him a grin.

“If you say so, darlin’,” the cowboy drawled, and Hanzo had to look away in a desperate attempt to cover his flush. A simple pet name should not affect him this much, but coming from McCree, it might as well have been blatant innuendo. Certainly the cowboy was free with them, but not, generally speaking, with Hanzo, and…

He was overanalyzing. He was almost glad for the chirp of the portable communicator Winston had given them, the one the architech would be calling on.

“I will get my brother and Zenyatta,” Hanzo said quickly, practically throwing himself out of his chair. 

“Alright,” McCree said, and there was something odd in his tone that Hanzo chose, aggressively, to ignore for the moment because there were more pressing matters.

He brought Genji and Zenyatta in, and also woke Lena, who grumbled but joined them despite her protests, while McCree pulled up the message - a map of the market near Lijiang Tower, with a specific spot marked. The rendezvous point.

“I could go alone,” Genji said. “It isn’t that far from here, and a single person - even someone that most will perceive as an omnic -  will draw far less attention than all five of us.” It was an alarmingly sound plan, even if Hanzo was loathe to see his brother put himself at such risk. If it  _ was  _ a trap… “I move quicker than anyone else here, I can smuggle our whistleblower back, we all get in the Orca and go home, job done!”

“You call if there’s even a whiff of trouble, you hear me?” McCree said. No one could see Genji’s face, but every inch of his body language made it clear that he was rolling his eyes very dramatically.

“Of course, Jesse. This won’t be my first operation,” he pointed out.

“Please be careful, my student,” Zenyatta admonished gently, and Genji huffed.

“I’m always careful, Master!” He said. Hanzo raised an eyebrow, and Genji put up both hands. “Alright, I’ll be extra careful.”

“Good luck!” Lena encouraged. “Come back safe!”

Genji saluted, and then he was out into the Lijiang night.

 

* * *

 

It was another round of the waiting game, after that; Zenyatta and Lena retreated once again, leaving McCree and Hanzo to sit in silence until McCree’s personal text comm device began to vibrate. He frowned, pulling it out, but once he actually read it, he burst out laughing. 

“What?” Hanzo’s eyebrows drew together, and he frowned. McCree tilted the screen towards him, and he scanned the messages, and had to put a hand over his mouth to cover a laugh himself.

**_GENJI:_ ** _ McCree _

**_GENJI:_ ** _ McCree help _

**_GENJI:_ ** _ McCree nobody mentioned the architech was a gorgeous woman _

**_GENJI:_ ** _ What do I do I don’t know what to do _

**_GENJI:_ ** _ Oh my god _

**_GENJI:_ ** _ HELP I think I’m in love _

“I’m framin’ this, when we get back to Gibraltar. Genji Shimada, rendered helpless by a pretty girl,” Jesse said, shaking his head. 

“It is amazing,” Hanzo agreed. “She must be something special, he never had trouble with flirtation in his youth.”

“Not when he first joined Blackwatch, neither,” Jesse laughed, fondly. “Well, we should be seein’ ‘em soon -  _ shit,”  _ he shoved his way out of the chair, “he’s actually askin’ for help, they got ambushed halfway back here.”

Hanzo needed no other encouragement. While McCree went to round up Lena and Zenyatta, he scooped up Storm Bow and prepared to race into the night to save his brother.

He would not see Genji harmed again.

 

* * *

 

His sniper perch, once he found it, gave him a good view of the rather chaotic battlefield below - Genji and the whistleblower, a dark-skinned woman in bright blue, were cornered in a pagoda in the market’s garden area. Vishkar, it seemed, was not eager to let one of its architechs go - they had hired a fairly large group of mercenaries to bring her back. 

McCree and Tracer dove right into the fight, practically headfirst, and Genji whooped with excitement when they arrived. Hanzo watched him nudge the woman, and he must have said something the comm didn’t pick up, because she nodded and seemed to brighten a little. 

There was a soft whirring next to him, and Hanxo glanced over - Zenyatta hovered a few feet away, and seemed to be regarding him with interest.

“Yes?” Hanzo asked, leaning out of cover to take a precise shot that dropped a mercenary, which earned him what distinctly sounded like a wolf whistle from McCree.

“We have not had much opportunity to speak,” Zenyatta said.

“Now does not strike me a an ideal time,” Hanzo replied, leaning out again to take three swift, precise shots, and then unleash a scatter arrow that sent mercenaries scurrying right into the path of McCree’s gun.

“Will there ever be an ideal time?” Zenyatta asked. “I sense much of the same rage in you that was in your brother.” Hanzo tensed.

“We are  _ nothing alike,”  _ he snarled, and then he took a breath, to rein himself in. This was Genji’s teacher, he reminded himself, the person who had saved his brother from what Hanzo had done to him. “Genji is a good person, not a murderer. You do him a great disservice, comparing us.”

“Is that what you think,” Zenyatta offered mildly. 

“It is what I know,” Hanzo replied. He heard a loud yelp over the comm, and winced, watching Tracer recall from a particularly bad hit. “You should be down there with them, they will need your help. I am out of most of the fire.”

Zenyatta hummed, briefly, and then floated off, and soon enough Hanzo saw him joining the battle below.

McCree swore violently, and Hanzo watched him slap a hand over his shoulder, which was bleeding sluggishly. The archer’s eyes narrowed, and he repaid the idiot who had shot him with an arrow to the head.

“More incoming!” Tracer warned, and he swore. Too many, again, like at Gibraltar, like in Dorado, too many hostiles and too many situations that almost  _ insistently  _ called for the dragons.

He felt Soba settle on his shoulders and chirp worriedly in his ear.

“I will be fine,” he assured her, and she made a disbelieving noise. He shot off a few more arrows, but there was only so much they could do. McCree retreated to the pagoda to cover Genji and the architech, and to Hanzo’s horror, he watched a small squadron sneak up behind them. Genji noticed, spun, flung his shurikens, and the architech began to dance light into turrets that fired photon beams, but Hanzo could see the whole layout of the battlefield - could see Tracer and Zenyatta being cut off, could see the groups circling them.

He could see, on a rooftop in the distance, the glint of a scope. He was not the only sniper in play, and this one was not friendly.

No time. Soba vanished from around his shoulders as he drew back his bow and took a breath.

If he stepped out, if he unleashed the dragons, he would mark himself as a target. He was perfectly within the other sniper’s line of sight - but there was only one option.

“We are being surrounded,” Genji was trying not to sound panicked, but Hanzo knew his brother too well, knew the edge of nerves in his voice.

“I have you,” Hanzo said. 

“Brother --” Genji began, likely a warning against using the dragons, but there was  _ no time  _ for anything else. Not when there were so many closing in - people who likely had orders to subdue the architech and kill anyone else interfering.

He glanced up again. The sniper was still there, definitely, lining up a shot.

_ With death comes honor. With honor, redemption. _

If he died for this - died saving McCree and Genji - he would, he hoped, perhaps have come close to earning the redemption he longed for. Even if not, with their lives, and the life of the architech so desperate to have a chance at freedom, weighed against his? There was only one possible choice for him.

It was as he had told Zenyatta - they were nothing alike. Genji was far better. Hanzo had tried to end his life, once; perhaps he would balance the scales by saving it.

“ _ Ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!” _

Hanzo stepped out only to fire, to ensure the dragons were soaring through the air, but it was still long enough.

He had been shot before, but never in the chest - it was pain, like nothing he had ever known, and then it was nothing.

He heard Genji shout a loud, desperate  _ “Brother!”  _ into the comm, but the last thing he heard as darkness claimed him was McCree’s anguished yell of  _ “Hanzo!” _


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter got away from me and it's about double the length of my usual ones. uh. oops?

For Jesse McCree, it felt like time stopped for a moment when Hanzo unleashed the dragons. This was the third time he had seen them, and they never got less majestic, but the terrible _crack_ of a sniper rifle jolted him out of watching them twist through the air and back to the present.

He watched, with mounting horror, as Hanzo fell. He didn’t even realize he’d screamed the man’s name until the architech turned to stare at him, looking surprised. Genji’s anguished cry of _“brother!”_ broke McCree’s heart, but he was still frozen i that terrible moment, the moment where Hanzo got _shot_ in front of him. Got shot unleashing the dragons that had just saved his entire team.

Genji was a green blur of fury, rocketing across the plaza, and several more shots rang out, but not a single one struck the cyborg. That shook McCree back to his senses, and he took command, just like he’d done a dozen times on ops gone bad in Blackwatch.

“Tracer, Zenyatta, can either’a you get to him?” He asked.

“On my way,” Lena said, and there was an edge of horror in her voice as she blinked rapidly across the battlefield. There was no one but the sniper to stop her, Hanzo had made sure of that, and there was maybe one sniper in the whole world who could get a bead on Lena Oxton. He was pretty sure she wasn’t here - the Widowmaker didn’t aim for center mass. She was better than that.

“I am moving to him as well,” Zenyatta said. “I will do what I can to stabilize him.”

“I have the sniper,” Genji said, and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. His comm picked up the sniper’s last wet, pained cry, and there was a part of McCree that was glad his death sounded so agonizing.

The architech - Satya, she’d said, when he introduced himself to her with a hat tip and a cheery “howdy, ma’am” - was frowning, and then she began to dance, crafting something out of hard light - a stretcher, McCree realized, and he could have hugged her, honestly, because lugging Hanzo back without one would have risked injuring him further.

“Thank you,” he said, and she nodded.

“It is the least I can do.” She said. “He saved me, as well.” She glanced back at the dead mercenaries all around them, felled by the powerful, hungry dragon spirits.

“We’re bringing him over, Zenyatta’s got him stabilized, but it’s not looking good,” Lena said.

“Don’t say that,” Genji said sharply, an edge of panic in his voice. He was already back at Jesse’s side, and when Lena and Zenyatta arrived, the monk carefully carrying Hanzo, he made a noise of desperate pain. Satya helped them get Hanzo onto her hard light stretcher, and it was a race back to the transport. There was only so much any of them could do - Satya produced hard light gauze and bandages, and Zenyatta’s hovering orb seemed to be doing something for the bleeding, but none of them were Angela Ziegler. They needed Overwatch’s miracle worker.

 

* * *

 

The silence of the transport was the worst thing. At least while they’d been getting Hanzo there, Jesse had a thousand things to think about; once they were on board he was left alone with nothing but his fears.

The architech was creating and destroying hard light trinkets; Jesse was observant enough to notice that she was shaking subtly. Poor girl, this was a terrible way to get dropped facefirst into Overwatch.

His eyes moved, inevitably, back to Hanzo’s still form. Genji was sitting next to him, speaking rapid-fire, quiet Japanese; Jesse had a working knowledge of the language, but he couldn’t pick up enough to hear.

He wanted to be sitting there too, holding Hanzo’s hand. He wanted --

God, he wanted to turn back time and steal a kiss in one of those quiet moments in that little safehouse, or go back even further and flirt harder, more obviously, whatever it took to make the archer realize how damn much Jesse wanted him. Make him realize that he took Jesse’s breath away, that he thought he was incredible and brilliant and beautiful.

He wanted to be assured they had _time,_ so he could rectify all those mistake. He wanted Hanzo to be okay.

Was this some kind of karmic repayment for everything he’d done? Jesse had been elated to have Jack and Gabriel back - a little pissed at them for lying about their deaths, sure, but shit had been so ass-backwards then it almost actually seemed like the rational thing to do, under the circumstances - and he wondered if this was the price he was paying for having something good in his life, because good things always came with a tradeoff. Blackwatch came with discovering the dark underbelly of it, having Gabe and Jack and Ana as the closest thing to parents he’d had since he was twelve had come with losing all of them. Maybe getting Jack and Gabe back came at the cost of losing Hanzo before Jesse even really got to have him.

Jesse hated to think that it might be too late. Angela would save him. She had to. She’d saved Gabriel and Jack and Genji from much worse than this; surely one bullet wound would not be too much.

He watched the slow, shallow rise and fall of Hanzo’s chest, and he hoped.

 

* * *

 

It hadn’t been an easy flight, even if between Lena’s piloting and the supersonic speed of the jet it was a (relatively) short one. Zenyatta had done his best, keeping Hanzo as stable as possible, and by the time they touched down Hanzo had at least stopped bleeding on everything, but his breathing was still slow and shallow and he hadn’t woken up once. Jesse knew all of those things were bad signs; he had a fairly realistic view of what it was possible for a man to survive, and miracles like the one that had kept Gabriel gong were (perhaps thankfully) in short supply.

He did his best not to show it, because Genji needed him to not freak out. Somebody had to be holding out hope for Hanzo to survive.

Angela swept in practically immediately, and while she and Zenyatta ferried Hanzo off to the medbay, Genji hot on her heels because there was no force in Heaven or Earth, apparently, that was going to part hm from his brother, Winston swept Satya off to his office with Jack and Gabe so they could review the information on Vishkar. Before he left, Gabe stopped to give Jesse a squeeze on the shoulder.

“He’ll be okay,” Gabe assured, quietly.

“I hope so,” Jesse admitted. He didn’t bother asking how Gabe knew he would need to hear that. Gabe just had an eye for those things. The old Blackwatch commander gave him a brief nod, and then jogged to catch up with Jack and Winston.

Jesse swung by the kitchen, because he hadn’t eaten since a brief meal in that safehouse and he was pretty sure no one else on that mission had either, and then returned to the medbay, where he found Genji, as he’d expected.

He was facing the door, forearm and forehead resting on it, shoulders shaking subtly as he pounded, weakly, against it. Angela wouldn’t let him in, not when she was operating on a patient, even if that patient was his brother. Sterile environment and all.

“Hey,” Jesse said, to get his attention. Genji stiffened for a moment, then turned, and his shoulders sagged with what Jesse was pretty sure was relief when he saw who it was.

“I can’t…” Genji gestured at the door. “I feel I should be in there, even though I would only get in the way.”

“I understand,” Jesse said, and he did. Once, when Gabe had been badly injured on a mission, he’d nearly banged the door down trying to get in there. He’d cussed up a storm at Jack when the Strike-Commander had pulled him away, and had called Jack a hundred names, starting with “heartless bastard” and getting worse from there until Jack had very quietly reminded him that both of them would just be under Angela’s feet and it would be more important that they be there when Reyes woke up then be there to watch him get opened up and stitched back together. Genji hadn’t yet told him to go fuck himself, so at least Genji was doing better than that. Still, Jesse had concerns. “When was the last time ya ate?” He asked.

“...Um.” Genji frowned. “That is actually a very good question.”

Jesse had come to know that despite Genji’s body being mostly cyborg, he still had a lot of regular human needs - the augmentations were primarily to his limbs, which had all been badly damaged, and his spine, which had been all but snapped. Food, water, rest - all of those were still necessities, and Jesse was well aware that Genji was about as good at taking care of himself while stressed as he was. That was to say, abject shit at it. Best to ensure he ate now, before what was undoubtedly going to be a long vigil at his brother’s side, because even with Angela’s biotics, there was no short recovery from being shot in the chest with a high-caliber sniper round.

He’d grabbed two plates for exactly that reason, piled with tamales that he was about ninety-eight percent sure Gabe had made. He pressed a plate into the cyborg’s hands, and Genji murmured his thanks, taking off the faceplate. He sank down to sit on the floor, and Jesse sat down next to him and tucked into his own, not at all eager to be far from the man lying in the medbay.

“He knew,” Genji said, a world of pain in his tone. “He had to. He’s too good to have not known there was another sniper on the field, and he still…”

“He still saved us,” Jesse said, and there it was, the weight of the thing that had been sitting on his shoulders. Hanzo had thrown himself in the path of that bullet for _them_ \- for him, and for Genji.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Genji said. “He probably thinks it is, or that it’s what he deserves, but - _this isn’t what I wanted,_ I can’t lose him again.”

“You won’t,” Jesse assured him. “Angie’s got him, she’ll make sure he pulls through.” Genji nodded, but the way his gaze lingered on the doors said he wasn’t totally convinced. Jesse didn’t blame him. They’d both seen too many people die, even with Angela doing everything she could, to be anything but a little terrified.

 

* * *

 

By the time Angela pushed the doors open, looking exhausted but smiling faintly, Jesse had time to take his and Genji’s dishes back to the kitchen and return, and Genji had replaced his faceplate.

“He will make it,” Angela said. “When he wakes up I will be advising him to stay in the medical bay for the rest of the week and not take any missions for a time after that, but he will live.”

Genji flew forward, pulling Angela into a desperate hug, and Jesse pretended politely not to hear the hitch of a sob behind his visor.

“Can I go in?” He asked, a little desperately.

“You may,” Angela said, waving him in. “I am going to sleep, for a while.” She disentangled from him, and Genji started into the medbay. Jesse started to slip off - he didn’t want to get in the way of the brothers’ reunion - and Genji grabbed his arm.

“He would be pleased to see you there, when he wakes. More pleased than to see me, I might even hazard,” Genji said. Jesse huffed.

“I doubt that,” he said, though privately, now that he was sure Hanzo was going to make it through his very ill-advised attempt at self-sacrifice, he could be glad that Genji seemed to think Hanzo enjoyed his company. “I’ll trust you, though, he’s your brother.”

Genji led him inside, and they each took a chair, dragging them to either side of the bed where Hanzo lay, ominously still but breathing much better than he had been on the flight. There were new bandages visible, without a trace of blood on them. It wasn’t exactly _pleasant_ to see someone he’d come to care for unconscious in a hospital bed, but there were worst ways for it to be going, really.

To Jesse’s surprise, he felt a weight settle around his shoulders - he turned his head, and resting there was a small blue dragon, who made a sad little chirping noise.

“Oh,” he said, softly. When he glanced back at the bed, there were two more curled on top of Hanzo - a second blue one and a green one. The green one raised his head, and briefly trilled at Jesse, before dropping back down. “Well. This ain’t the way I expected to meet your brother’s dragons, I gotta say.”

He’d known Ramen well enough in Blackwatch that this wasn’t _really_ a surprise, but it still sort of was one, nevertheless. Genji had explained back when he’d first met Ramen face to face that the dragon being willing to show his face was a sign of respect and trust.

Hanzo trusted him enough for the dragons to have picked up on it. That meant a hell of a lot to Jesse, no other way to put it.

“I told you that he would want you here,” Genji said, and Jesse didn’t have to see his face to know the fond smile that was painted across it. “That’s Udon, on your shoulders, and Soba there with Ramen. Hanzo will be glad to see they’ve taken to you.”

“Hello there,” Jesse said, reaching up to gently stroke the dragon on his shoulders. She slithered off them, and he moved his arms so he could cradle her against his chest, thumb brushing over her head. “Your partner’s gonna be just fine,” he assured, and the dragon made a low almost-purring sound in response.

Honestly, Jesse considered the dragons’ appearance to be the best omen for Hanzo’s survival yet.

 

* * *

 

Hanzo had not expected to wake up after being shot in Lijang, but he supposed if he’d been asked what he thought it would be like, he would have described quite a lot of pain and been very much correct. It was a sprawling ache, nothing like the piercing agony of getting shot in the first place, but still certainly not comfortable.

He groaned and sat partway up, and heard two loud, distressed chirps. Hanzo blinked, slowly, forcing his eyes to focus on the two shapes on his stomach, disturbed by his attempt to move - Soba and Ramen, both looking at him with reproach in their eyes. He felt a brief moment of panic flare up. If Ramen was there, that meant -

“Hello, brother,” Genji’s voice, the changed, modulated version that came from behind his visor, was to his left.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” the drawled tease came from his right, and Hanzo felt a moment of breathless shock. He looked left, first - yes, there was Genji, expected, but oh so very welcome anyway. To his right, though, was a pair of surprises - first, that McCree was present at all, and second, that he was holding Udon, who looked very happily settled against the gunslinger’s still-present serape. Hanzo could see the peek of body armor under it - McCree hadn’t bothered to dress down from the mission.

“Where am I?” He asked, and winced, briefly berating himself for such an idiotic question.

“Gibraltar. Zenyatta stabilized you, and we were able to get you back here, but it was very...touch and go, I believe is the phrase.” Genji said, and he was quiet.

“Did everyone else survive? The architech, Tracer?” Hanzo asked, because he needed to know.

“You saved all our asses, darlin’,” McCree said, and something in Hanzo ached to hear Jesse call him _darling_ and _mean it_ but ah, no. “Though I wish you’d pointed out that sniper some way other’n getting shot by ‘em.”

“There was no time for anything else.” Hanzo said, as if it was obvious, because to him it was. “I did what was necessary. It saved both of you.”

“Hanzo,” Genji sounded so pained, it sent a shock of guilt through Hanzo so strong it almost made him physically ill. He had known Genji would not be entirely pleased with his choice to sacrifice himself, but he had hoped, he realized with another rush of guilt, that he would not be around to see it. That was, he knew, entirely unfair of him.

“Don’t do that,” Jesse said, and for once, he, too, was quiet. The cowboy stood up, carefully setting Udon down on the bed, where she immediately twisted in with her brother and sister. “I’ll leave you two to have a chat,” he said. Genji shook his head, pushing himself up quicker.

“I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll return later, brother, but - promise me you won’t do that again.”

“I -” Hanzo began, and he flinched, because he couldn’t quite make himself make the promise. Genji sighed, but it was all sadness, no frustration.

“Never mind” he said, and the he was gone, though Ramen remained at the core of the pile of dragons sharing Hanzo’s cot.

There was a moment of silence while McCree resettled himself in his seat, and regarded Hanzo.

“Why’d you do it?” He asked, finally, voice low.

“It was the only available tactical option, I -” Hanzo began. McCree raised a hand to cut him off.

“Forgive me for pryin’, because it might damn well be none of my business, but that ain’t what I meant.” McCree said. “A man only throws himself in front of a bullet for someone else for two reasons - he wants to be real heroic, or he thinks his life ain’t worth spit compared to the person he’s takin’ a bullet for. You don’t strike me as the heroic type.”

“You are prying,” Hanzo said, and guilt surged again like bile. It was that obvious, he supposed, how little he valued his own life in comparison to that of his comrades.

“Shimada-san,” Jesse said, and Hanzo recalled how his voice had sounded curling over the syllables of his _first_ name, and he wished Jesse would use _that_ but couldn’t bring himself to ask, “you don’t need to be riskin’ yourself to save us. D’you think that’s what Genji wants, for you to die as penance for what you did?”

“I know it is not what he wants,” Hanzo said, “or he would have killed me long ago.” That night in Hanamura, Genji’s sword had been at his throat. It would have been his right to cut Hanzo down. It would have made sense. It would have been so much easier than this _forgiveness_ foolishness. Hanzo treasured every extra moment with his brother, and he would not have traded his chance to meet the members of Overwatch for anything, but the facts were still what they were. “He is wrong to think that I can redeem myself in any other way.”

“Oh, Hanzo, darlin’,” there it was, and Hanzo wanted to sob, “that ain’t true. There’s plenty’a redemption in the world. I found it. I bet our new Architech’s lookin’ for it. You can get yourself some too, no dyin’ required.”

There was a long moment of silence while Hanzo searched for the right words. Part of him wanted to argue - it wasn’t the _same,_ not at _all,_ what he had done was monstrous and unforgivable - but there was something in McCree’s face and in his tone that shut it down.

“Thank you, McCree,” he said, instead, because...he appreciated the gunslinger believing in him, even if his faith was misplaced.

“Think on what I said, ‘s all I ask,” McCree said, standing up. “I’ll come by later, maybe bring somethin’ to do - you play chess?” He asked.

“I do,” Hanzo said, glad for the change of subject. “I am surprised you do.”

“Everyone is,” McCree said, all good humor again, as if they hadn’t just had a deeply serious discussion. “I’ll bring a board down, we can play a couple games.”

“I would like that,” Hanzo said, and McCree gave him a nod before he turned to leave.

 

* * *

 

Genji did come by, an hour or so later by Hanzo’s reckoning, and he opened with a desperate plea once he had sat himself in the same chair Jesse had abandoned.

“Never do that again, please,” he begged, “I’m sure Jesse already told you, but you _cannot,_ do not throw your life away like that!”

“I was not throwing my life away,” Hanzo protested. “I saved yours, and McCree’s, and the Architech’s; if I had died, it would have been a noble death.”

“I don’t care how noble it is, Hanzo, I cannot lose you again!” Genji said. He reached up and removed the faceplate, setting it aside, and Hanzo was confronted with how utterly _devastated_ his brother looked. The scarring was still...a shock, but mostly, he hated that Genji looked like he actually did feel awful about Hanzo choosing to save him. “I spent a decade terrified that you were dead, or worse,” he admitted quietly. “When I heard you were missing, I knew you had run, and I was certain, the longer it took to hear anything of you, that the clan had caught up with you. I was so afraid, that night in Hanamura, that it wouldn’t be you, not really - I almost didn’t believe it until I saw you praying. And now - what? We finally have a chance to reconcile, and you were willing to throw it all away?”

“If it saved you, the cost is irrelevant,” Hanzo said, honestly. “I would do it again, a thousand times. You are my little brother. It is my duty to protect you. I failed you once. I will not again.”

Something in Genji’s face broke, and he leaned over, wrapping his arms around Hanzo in a tight hug. Hanzo squeezed him back, and for a moment they might have been children again, until the insistent ache in his chest demanded attention.

“Genji,” he said, quietly, and Genji let go, but he moved so he was sitting on the bed.

“You know,” he said, “McCree was freaking out. I don’t think he wanted me to realize, and I definitely don’t think he wanted to show it, but he was worried about you.” Hanzo grimaced.

“I am sorry for worrying you, and him,” he said. “I…”

“Don’t,” Genji said. “You’re alive. That’s what matters. Just...please, consider less self-destructive ways of saving us all next time?”

“I will consider it.” Hanzo said. “I would prefer not to do this again,” he admitted, grimacing. “Almost dying has been a fairly objectively terrible experience.” Genji was silent for a moment, and then he cracked a smile.

“Look on the bright side,” he said, “it got Jesse to use your first name, finally.” Hanzo winced.

“He was worried for a comrade,” Hanzo sad dismissively. That was all it was. That was all it _could be._

“Right, of course,” Genji said, sounding terribly unconvinced. Hanzo sighed.

“Do not be ridiculous, Genji. And leave me, I am exhausted.” He waved a hand, hoping that would work. No matter how much he wanted the opposite to be true, McCree was not interested in Hanzo the way Hanzo was in McCree. That was all there was to it. He was friendly, certainly, and a bit flirtatious, but that was, as best Hanzo could gather, just his personality. It did not mean anything, of that he was certain.

Genji scooped up his visor and affixed it back in place carefully, but paused before he left to give Hanzo a long look.

“I am serious, brother. No more recklessness. I cannot lose you.” He said, and it was sobering. Hanzo nodded.

“I promise.”

He even actually meant it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow so this took me way longer than I ever anticipated -- but I'm pretty pleased with the chapter I have to deliver. I hope y'all enjoy it too!

Waiting to hear news on an injured teammate was, in Gabriel’s opinion, the worst part. Knowing that Hanzo had taken a sniper’s bullet to the chest - an injury that very easily could have been fatal - had him on edge even through Vaswani’s rundown of the data she’d brought them. It was good data, and it was a  _ lot  _ of data, and some of it was encrypted, and on a better day he’d be turning over ways to go at it. Hell, she even brought them the name of someone she thought might be worth recruiting - a freedom fighter and musician from Brazil, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, who’d caused some trouble for Vishkar in the past. Distantly, he’d agreed that the kid sounded like a good recruit, and watched as Winston sent off a message offering him the chance to come back, but -- really, his heart and his brain both weren’t in the discussion, at all.

Right then all he wanted was to know if the man  _ he  _ had sent into the field was going to survive.

He’d found himself a secluded corner of the Watchpoint, and had paced back and forth for a while before just collapsing in a corner with his head buried in his hands, racking his brain for ways he could have stopped this from happening.

It had been foolish not to send more backup, not to be prepared for Vishkar’s inevitable insistence on recovering their Architech and all the investment she  _ had  _ to represent. Hard light technology was neither cheap nor simple, and he had seen what Sombra had done to herself to use even the watered-down version of it she did in her work. 

Stupid, stupid, a thousand times stupid - he should have sent Reinhardt as backup, even if the man was as stealthy as an armored troop transport vehicle.  _ Nobody  _ was ever prepared for a Crusader in full armor with a rocket hammer. Hell, he should have gone himself, let Jack debrief Winston; he was fucking unkillable, if anyone ought to be taking bullets for anyone else, it should be him.

He had a  _ responsibility  _ to these people, they weren’t...they weren’t just Talon meatshields, traitors, and terrorists. This was  _ Overwatch.  _ These were the people he  _ cared about.  _ And his own poor planning and lack of accounting for the possibility of extra danger had gotten one of them shot. That it had s _ pecifically  _ gotten the man Jesse McCree, his protege, practically his  _ son,  _ was obviously head over heels for shot. The man just beginning to reconcile with a brother he’d thought dead - and wouldn’t that be the way of things, if Genji finally got a chance to see his brother again and it was ripped out of his hands just like that. There was a chance his failure to properly strategize, his selfish desire to stay back at the Watchpoint with Jack for just a little while before getting thrown back into the fight, had cost Hanzo his life, Genji his brother, and Jesse a chance at happiness.

“Gabriel,” there was a hand on his shoulder, and he turned, and there was Jack. “You’re, uh. Smoking.”

“What,” he said, and felt a jolt of alarm when his voice came out with the dark, gravelly echo it usually only had when he was  _ Reaper.  _ He looked down, and - yeah, definitely smoking, almost coming apart at the seams into a dark fog. He took a long breath and pulled himself together, rather literally, forcing the fog back into the shape of  _ Gabriel Reyes  _ instead of  _ angry cloud of rage-smoke.  _ “I...sorry.”

“Is...that a thing that happens, now?” Jack asked, and Gabriel sighed.

“Yeah. When I get upset, or angry, or...anything, that. Happens.” He said.

“Does it hurt?” There was genuine concern in Jack’s voice.

“ _ Everything  _ hurts, these days,” Gabriel admitted quietly. “All the time. It’s like background noise, a lot of days. Right now? Not so bad. I’m more worried about the kid in the infirmary.”

“I was coming to let you know - I caught Genji on his way out. Hanzo’s gonna make it.”

It was like a ton of weight was off Gabriel’s shoulders. 

“ _ Shit.  _ Good, I’m glad, thanks for letting me know,” he said, as Jack sat down next to him and pulled him into a hug.

“I thought you’d want to know. I remembered how you got, when one of your people was in danger.” Jack said, fingers carding through Gabriel’s undercut mop of loose curls. Gabriel closed his eyes, and for a moment, it was easy to imagine no time had passed at all, and they were still young men in the SEP, back when all they’d been afraid of was washing out. Or that they were still in command of the original Overwatch, together. 

“Yeah,” Gabriel acknowledged. He’d always taken failures hard - it never got any easier, and it was so simple to lose himself in self-flagellation. 

“Hey. We can do this. Together. The way we always  _ should  _ have been doing it all along.” Jack said, and Gabriel nodded, slowly. That was true - he didn’t have to do this alone. He wasn’t the leader of Blackwatch, cut off, running underground covert operations that were so secret not even Jack could know more than the barest details. He didn’t have to go it alone anymore.

“Together,” Gabriel said, and he opened his eyes, looking up and leaning in to steal a brief kiss.

That was when a whole cascade of alarms started going off.

“ _ Shit,” _ Gabriel shot up. He knew those - he’d tripped them, back when he broke into the Watchpoint with Talon. “Those are Athena’s intrusion alarms. We’ve gotta go back to the lab, see what the hell is going on.”

“Do you think it’s Talon? Or Vishkar?” Jack asked, hauling himself off the ground. 

“I doubt Vishkar knows who took their Architech - Vaswani said she was careful and covered her tracks. They knew she wa leaving, though - anything’s possible.” Gabriel was already running plans in his head as they booked it down the halls to Winston’s lab. If it  _ was  _ an assault, by Vishkar or Talon or whoever the hell else was out there that wanted Overwatch down, they were out a sniper, but they  _ did  _ have an otherwise fully-trained and very angry team of badasses. The away group from Lijiang would be exhausted, but he’d seen McCree and Genji both fight while worse off. Angela could probably be counted out; she’d be down for the rest of the day after performing whatever minor miracle she used to save Shimada. 

They’d make due with what they had. They’d have to.

He and Jack pushed the doors open in unison, and as soon as he saw what was on the largest central screen in the lab - not to mention all the smaller ones - Gabriel groaned.

A bright violet sugar skull dominated the displays. He knew that emblem very, very well, and he knew the woman behind it even better.

“Gabriel!” Winston sounded immeasurably relieved. “I was going to call for you - this...woman is demanding your appearance.”

“Gabi!” The largest display flickered, to show Sombra herself, leaning forward in her seat in a way he rarely saw. She launched off in rapid-fire Spanish, and it was  _ almost _ gratifying to see Jack and Winston looking desperately confused. He knew Jack understood it, but apparently he’d let himself get out of practice - ironic, since he’d been in  _ Dorado. _ “Where the hell did you  _ go?  _ Not a single call, not a check-in, nothing, all I hear is that suddenly the Reaper is on Talon’s kill list and now I’m hearing you’re with  _ Overwatch?  _ Oh my  _ God _ , what’s a girl to think? Are they blackmailing you? Are you being held against your will? Do I need to bust you out?  _ Again? _

“Gabe, who is this,” Jack asked, voice low. Gabriel held up a hand - a basic  _ wait  _ gesture.

“I’m  _ fine,  _ Sombra,” he said, not bothering with Spanish to ensure everyone understood what he was saying. “I’m here because I want to be, you don’t need to bust me out, and you didn’t actually  _ help _ with busting me out last time, either.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have checked in, but things have been a little crazy around here.” To say the least. Gabriel wasn’t sure he’d had time to  _ breathe,  _ much less make a call. “Jack, Winston, this is Sombra. She’s a hacker I’ve worked with on and off over the past few years.” Sombra wiggled her fingers in a lazy wave. “She’s also a pain in my ass, but she’s been a bigger pain in Talon’s.”

“Thanks _ , papi,”  _ Sombra said sarcastically, and Jack raised a questioning eyebrow. Gabriel just shrugged, a little helplessly. “So, you’re at Gibraltar, yeah?” She asked. “I can be there in a couple of days. I might need a little time to wrap a few things up here.”

“Now wait a second,” Winston said. “You hacked into my system, started making demands, accused us of holding a member of Overwatch against his will - and now you want to  _ join us?” _

“Sure, why not?,” Sombra waved a hand. “Besides, you  _ need  _ me. I have  _ information,  _ I have  _ connections  _ \- you need those things, especially if you all don’t want to be arrested and hauled in front of the UN. All that  _ breaking into your system _ was just a misunderstanding that could have been avoided  _ if Gabriel picked up his damn phone.” _

“If this is all sorted out,” Athena’s mechanical voice piped up, “I would appreciate it if you released your hold on my systems.”

“Yeah, yeah. See you soon,  _ amigos. _ ” Sombra waved, and the display cut out, and Athena’s logo reappeared.

“What the  _ hell,  _ Gabe,” Jack said, once she was gone. “I’ve heard of Sombra - she’s dangerous. Unpredictable.”

“She works for herself, and nobody else,” Gabriel acknowledged, “but she’ll be a useful asset, especially since we just got an absolutely incredible amount of encrypted data.” 

“You’ve picked up...interesting associates, Gabriel,” Winston said, slowly, like he was measuring every word.

“Mercenary work will give you those,” Gabriel replied dryly. “She’s the kind of asset I would have killed for when I was running Blackwatch, and not to put too fine a point on it or anything, but we have to run this outfit more like I ran Blackwatch. We’re smaller, with a lot less resources, and we’re violating the hell out of the PETRAS Act. We have to pick up people like Sombra, like Jesse, like Hanzo - people already used to working outside the law.” He exhaled between his teeth. “I’m sorry, Winston, but we can’t all be golden heroes anymore.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Winston acknowledged, but he said it in a way that made it clear he wasn’t entirely  _ happy  _ about it.

“It isn’t like we all haven’t been working outside the law,” Jack acknowledged. “Do you trust her?”

“Not as far as I can throw her,” Gabriel admitted, “but as long as it’s advantageous for her to help us, she will.” He shrugged. “Besides, my last morally compromised pseudo-adopted kid was McCree, and look how that turned out.” Jack actually briefly cracked a smile at that.

“I suppose,” Winston grumbled, though he still looked dubious about the whole thing. 

The door pushed open again, and Lena practically tumbled through.

“What’s going on up here? I heard the alarms, and - everybody’s okay, yeah?” She asked, practically vibrating.

“We’re fine,” Gabriel offered. “An...associate of mine was concerned about me dropping off the radar. She decided to show her concern in the most frustratingly dramatic way possible.” Lena snorted.

“That’s a hell of a thing,” she said. “So everything’s okay? Athena, you’re doing alright?”

“I am,” the AI replied. “Thank you for your concern, Agent Tracer.”

“Always, luv!” She chirped. “That reminds me, I ought to call home, make sure Emily’s doing okay. We’ve never done the long-distance thing before - do you think there’d be space for her at the Watchpoint, if she can make the move?” 

“ _ Emily? _ ” Gabriel asked, raising his eyebrows.

“My girlfriend, she’s -” Lena sighed, happily. “She’s something special, alright.”

“We can see about making room,” Winston said. “We’ll need more space anyway, if we’re bringing in...more new agents.”

“Well, hell,” Lena said, grinning brightly, “we can start clearing out some space, then! How many are we looking at?”

“One, maybe two,” Winston said. 

“Alright!” She clapped. “Who’re the new kids?”

“A musician named Lúcio, on Miss Vaswani’s recommendation,” Winston said, “and an associate of Gabriel’s, a hacker who goes by Sombra.”

“Wait,” Lena said, “ _ the  _ Lúcio? Oh, hell, I’ll have to tell Em all about this, she loves his music, she’ll right about die,” she bolted off, undoubtedly to go make that phone call.

“At least someone’s excited,” Winston grumbled.

“Have we heard back from dos Santos yet, then?” Gabriel asked. 

“He responded almost immediately - he’ll be here within the week, once his tour finishes.” Winston replied. “We’ll have to be careful - recruitment will likely draw quite a lot of attention onto us.”

“Yeah, well,” Gabriel said dryly, “we’ll just have to remind the world why Overwatch needs to exist.”

 

* * *

 

Emily liked to imagine that she was pretty well used to unusual drop-ins, what with dating a member of Overwatch - she’d had Christmas with a hyperintelligent gorilla scientist, weird was just a part of her life these days.

_ Weird  _ really did not cover what was happening to her right then.  _ Weird  _ was finding Genji Shimada on her couch, snacking on something he’d stolen out of her cabinet., because he wanted to drop by and check in on Lena.  _ Weird  _ was the first time she met Jesse McCree, who’d dropped by while he was in London after a bounty.  _ Weird  _ was hearing from her girlfriend that Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison, the presumed-dead former leaders of Overwatch, were, somehow, still alive. And apparently still acting like an old, happily married couple.

_ Weird  _ did not cover having one of the world’s most terrifying assassins sitting at her kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea - out of one of  _ her cups  _ \- waiting for her when she came home from work. 

The Widowmaker looked up from her drink, met Emily’s eyes, and very slowly set the mug down and raised her hands.

“I am unarmed,” she said, standing up and stepping away from the table. The skintight catsuit she wore didn’t  _ seem  _ to leave any room for hidden weapons, and her rifle was nowhere to be seen, and also Emily wasn’t  _ dead,  _ so she supposed that was as much of a reassurance as she was, practically speaking, going to get.

“What are you doing here,” Emily asked, though it really wasn’t a question.

“I wanted to see you up close,” Widowmaker said, tilting her head to the side. “I wanted to...speak to you.”

“Why?” Emily asked. “This seems a long way to go out for someone you want to kill.” Because that was the only thing that made sense. She knew Lena and Widowmaker had a sort of...mid-battle flirtation...thing, but Widowmaker was still, as best anyone could tell, Talon’s perfect killer to the core. There were half a dozen reasons Emily could think of that Widowmaker would be sent to kill her, or would  _ want  _ to kill her - maybe she was crazy and possessive, maybe Talon meant to have her killed to hurt Lena - and she couldn’t think of a single one for why Widowmaker should be regarding her with such surprise.

“I am not here to kill you,  _ belle fille,”  _ Widowmaker said. “I do not...I could not.” She shook her head. “I merely...I wished to speak to you, face to face. I have seen you, and her, and I -- both of you -- I have not  _ felt things  _ in so long, and yet.”

“What?” Emily asked, articulately. She wanted to smack herself for it right after, but really, what else  _ did  _ one say to the revelation that she’d sort of been...followed by the world’s most dangerous woman who was also her girlfriend's ex and... _ Good God this was complicated. _

“It is hard to explain.” Widowmaker wrapped her arms around herself, and she didn’t look like a deadly, dangerous monster, she looked like a very lost woman who probably needed a hug. “Tracer... _ Lena  _ makes me feel alive, in a way I have not in a very long time. But you, you make me - I have never wanted to  _ protect  _ someone before. I have never wanted to  _ preserve  _ a life. But the thought of anything happening to you fills me with a dread I cannot imagine.” She swallowed. “I do not understand. I am not meant to protect things. That is not what I am for.”

“Oh,” Emily said, softly. 

Was this a glimpse at the Amélie Lacroix Lena had known, before she was turned into Widowmaker? 

Did it _matter_? 

What mattered, Emily supposed, was that she was hurting and afraid.

Emily stepped forward and pulled the other woman into a tight hug, and Widowmaker collapsed against her. Carefully, Emily guided her over to the couch and sat down. 

“I can call Lena, she’ll want to talk to you.” Emily said. Widowmaker shook her head. 

“I cannot. I...do not know what to say to her. And Talon is here, they cannot know that I have come to visit you. It will paint a target on your back, a brighter one than already exists.” That was chilling, to have her suspicions confirmed. “But...may I stay here a while? Just a little while.”

“You stay as long as you can,” Emily offered, because someone ought to be kind to her. 

This would be a hell of a story to tell Lena, that was for sure.


	11. Hiatus Announcement

Hi, guys!

I’m sure many of you were hoping for an actual update -- unfortunately, that’s not what I’m here with. For a lot of reasons, I’m going to be putting this particular fic on hiatus. I don’t want to get too far into the whys of it, because that’s just depressing for everybody, but I will say that it is very likely that when I do come back to this fic, it will be receiving heavy editing and rewriting. I don’t see the characters the same way I did when I started this, and that may mean that in order to continue the fic and be happy with it, I have to change some things.

It’s also fully possible that I’ll decide I’m fine with it how it is, and just continue from where we are!

But for now the best thing I can do is set this project aside. I’ve still got plenty of others, and they’re not going anywhere - and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of new ones to introduce. 

Thank you for understanding!

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at [noirsongbird](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)!


End file.
